Paul Crouch

Flamboyant televangelist Paul Crouch first gained notoriety as the founder of the "Trinity Broadcasting Network" (TBN), an evangelical/charismatic Christian television network, on which he and his wife, Jan Crouch, had their own religious (but very controversial among conservative evangelicals) talk show called Praise the Lord (1973). In 1999, Crouch came under much criticism for his network's relentless promotion of the film, The Omega Code (1999), which involved having members of the film's cast and its producers and director making appearances on several of the network's religious talk shows, promoting the film as one that "Christian families" should see as an alternative to the "sexually explicit, violent and Godless" films coming out of Hollywood, and claiming that it was a "huge box office hit" (it wasn't); what Crouch didn't tell his audience was that he was in fact an executive producer of the film, his organization financed it and he stood to make quite a bit of money if the film became a hit (it didn't). After the Crouch organization's connection with the film became public knowledge (and after many letters from outraged viewers), he admitted his role in the film's production on subsequent promotional efforts that were run on his network.