The challenge at Miracle Channel is not about whether what they're producing is of national broadcast quality. That's a moot point since the CRTC has given MCTV a maximum of only 150,000 viewers by regulating them to the Lethbridge broadcast area. A local station, they produce local quality productions.

The real challenge at MCTV is still survival. If they don't increase their broadcast reach, they won't make it, says President Dick DeWert.. Having recently purchased three new transmitters to double their existing coverage, MCTV is in the process of applying for an amendment to their broadcast license. If approved, it would give them audiences in Medicine Hat, Brooks and Bow Island, Alberta. DeWert is actively considering other expansion options such as applying for a network license or seeking permission to be carried as a distant station on cable.

As station founder and tv host of several of a number of the ministry's productions, DeWert recently resigned as pastor of Victory Church in Lethbridge so he and his wife Joan could devote full time hours to the television station's expansion and development.

MCTV has a 1997 budget of $840,000 for 24 hours a day of Christian content. 45% of those hours are filled with Canadian content, with seven weekly programs being generated by services or church programs within Lethbridge's Victory congregation. A non-commercial station, half the budget comes in from donations, half from airtime sales, estimates DeWert.

Airtime costs range from $35 to $200 per half hour, and ministries warrant the effectiveness of their purchase by viewer response to their on-air offers. MCTV believes that unless they can expand their viewer base, those purchasing airtime will soon be discouraged and pull out because of low responses from a limited audience.

Meanwhile, true to it's name, Miracle TV has several remarkable stories of how "just in the nick of time" resources have come in to keep them on air. It seems those tangible measures of God's providence and the satisfaction of pioneering a new beginning in Canadian TV is keeping morale at MCTV right up there with what's required to make impossible possible.