Religious channels have been prospering on Indian television for the last couple of years. Aastha, Sanskar, etc Punjabi (with its Gurbani telecast), Maharishi Veda Vision and the MiracleNet are some of the channels which have made their debut. Now there's another waiting on the sidelines to make a foray: the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) Global Catholic Network. The channel's management has announced that it will launch a television service for India in the first quarter of 2002. As part of the launch, EWTN will also expand the reach of its television service currently available in Africa.

According to EWTN president Michael Warsaw, the Network has reached an agreement in principle with PanAmSat to move its current Africa channel from the PAS 3 satellite to the recently launched PAS 10 spacecraft. With this shift, Warsaw says this move will not only allow EWTN's content to be seen and heard by more than 99 per cent of the Catholic population on the African continent, but will also make both its radio and TV service available to more than 10,000 cable television systems in India.

"Like the Apostle Thomas, who first preached the Gospel in India two thousand years ago," Warsaw notes "EWTN will soon bring that same message to new television and radio audiences throughout this vast region."

In a related move, EWTN has signed an agreement with satellite radio provider WorldSpace Direct Media Service to bring EWTN's multimedia content to personal computers throughout Africa and Asia. Says Warsaw: "EWTN is extremely pleased to once again be working at the cutting edge of technology by being able to offer our Internet content directly to the end users of the WorldSpace system."

EWTN has been in existence for than 20 years and telecasts to more than 70 million TV homes accross the globe. Its founder Mother M. Angelica, a Poor Clare nun, set up Our Lady of Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, and then started creating mini-books with religious teachings. As these gained in popularity, she created a video series of her talks taped at a local Birmingham television station and followed this up with a television studio on monastery property in Irondale. That small TV studio has now evolved into a state of the art audiovisual complex funded totally by gifts from individuals and groups, and visited annually by thousands of pilgrims.

In 1992, her vision ever expanding, with contributions from the late Piet Derksen couple, Mother Angelica established the world's largest privately owned short wave radio station on a mountain top 20 miles from EWTN. The station broadcasts 24 hours a day in English and Spanish to areas of the world including those remote places not reached by television.

The heart of EWTN TV Channel is its show, Mother Angelica Live, hosted by Mother Angelica, which is broadcast before a live audience every Tuesday and Wednesday night. In addition, EWTN offers several live programs including the Daily Mass from the chapel in Irondale, Life on the Rock, a teen and young adult show with host Jeff Cavins, The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi and The World Over with news anchor Raymond Arroyo. The network also airs documentaries, weekly series hosted by leading Catholic theologians, coverage of Church events in the U.S. and abroad, seasonal music specials, the Rosary and other devotional prayer segments.

EWTN will be a free to air channel.