Christian satellite television sees growth in Turkey

Mission Network News

TURK-7 is an exciting Christian television channel broadcasting quality programming to Turkish-speaking people worldwide.

TURK-7's Michael Glenn says it's a good fit because the Turkish people are hungry for media. "They are second only to the United States in the number of television channels. So they draw in this stuff, in an eager way. Half the population is under the age of 30. They're more media savvy, more in-tune to this kind of thing. Right now, we're doing four hours a day of broadcasting, and our goal is that within two and a half years, we can go 24/7, pumping that Gospel in."

At present, they're able to beam their signal into 70 million viewers in the Republic of Turkey, plus another ten million other Turks in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. In addition, TURK-7's web streaming service makes the channel available to viewers throughout the world.

In an area that was nearly 25% Christian a century ago, the population of believers now falls under one percent. Despite changes made to facilitate joining the European Union, there is no indication of increasing religious freedom.

While the Turkish constitution includes freedom of religion, worship services are only permitted in "buildings created for this purpose," and officials have restricted the construction of buildings for minority religions.

Evangelism is difficult, so working alone isn't practical. Because they've partnered with 30 organizations and churches, they're able to do much more in scope. The programs being broadcast give a Christian point of view on a variety of topics using different program formats including documentaries, dramas, children's animations and teaching.