For many years, satellite television has been broadcasting across the globe reaching previously isolated countries and regions with vital news and information. At the forefront of Christian broadcasting is ‘SAT-7’, a ministry that utilizes satellite TV to reach out to millions of people with the Gospel of Jesus to the Middle East and North Africa.
Satellite TV can bypass local government censorship and the core hope of SAT-7 is to present the Gospel and make it available to everyone and to support the Church in places it is being persecuted. Recently, Dr. Terence Ascott, CEO and founder of SAT-7, spoke to the 2013 conference of the Fellowship of European Broadcasters (FEB) where the theme of the conference was ‘Changing Media – Unchanging Message.’ In a recent interview, Dr. Ascott said SAT-7 had seen “phenomenal growth” in the number of people they have been able to reach. “When Sadam Hussein fell, the first thing many people did was go out and buy a satellite dish. We saw the same thing in Afghanistan with the collapse of the Taliban. People started watching satellite television, and bringing TVs out that they had previously hidden away.”
Most recently, there has been a rapid expansion through new media channels such as online webcasting, YouTube channels, and applications that enable viewing on mobile phones. Reportedly, there are over 600,000 clips and programs downloaded from its Arabic language YouTube page alone every month.
“While television is a useful and entertaining media in the West, it can actually be an agent for changing lives and political regimes in the Middle East. And newer social media can help mobilize millions,” says Dr. Ascott.
There is a missing hope in the Middle East. The Christian Church has been almost completely decimated. Thousands of Christians have been internally displaced, or made refugees in other countries. “But the Gospel has shone through in all this. We want to share the hope of the Gospel, to bring hope into a situation which is otherwise hopeless,” the Dr. said.