Mother Angelica made her profession of
vows in 1953. In 1962 she established Our Lady of the Angels monastery. During the 1970s, she was an in-demand lecturer and produced pamphlets and audio and video tapes. She had been a guest on local station
WBMG (currently WIAT, Channel 42), and on shows on the
Christian Broadcasting Network and the
Trinity Broadcasting Network. After she gave an interview on then-Christian station
WCFC (Channel 38) in
Chicago, she decided she wanted her own network. "I walked in, and it was just a little studio, and I remember standing in the doorway and thinking, 'It doesn't take much to reach the masses'. I just stood there and said to the Lord, 'Lord, I've got to have one of these'". Mother Angelica purchased satellite space and EWTN began broadcasting on August 15, 1981, with four hours of daily programming, which included her own show,
Mother Angelica Live (aired bi-weekly), a Sunday Mass, and reruns of older Catholic programs such as Archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen's
Life Is Worth Living. The remainder of the time was filled with shows produced by dioceses across the country, shows from
Protestant sources which Mother Angelica determined were in concert with
Catholic teachings, and children's shows such as
Joy Junction and
The Sunshine Factory. About one-third of programming time consisted of secular content, such as re-runs of
The Bill Cosby Show,
public domain films, and cooking and
western-themed shows. EWTN eventually increased its broadcast schedule to six hours per day and then to eight hours per day by 1986. Secular content was gradually reduced from 1986 to 1988, and
satellite distribution was expanded late in 1987, after which EWTN acquired a far more desirable satellite channel and began broadcasting around the clock. At this point, EWTN began broadcasting the praying of the rosary on a daily basis and added a number of educational shows. In-house production of original programming gradually increased. The Mass became televised daily in 1991 from a chapel on the monastery grounds. Most shows from non-Catholic sources were eliminated and a more theological image gradually developed. From 1982 to 1994, the network had competition from another Catholic broadcaster, the
Catholic Telecommunications Network of America. The network was sponsored by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops which poured $30 million into the venture before it failed. In 2000, "in the midst of an
apostolic visitation by San Juan Archbishop
Roberto González Nieves" to investigate Mother Angelica's authority over the station and monastery, Mother Angelica gave control of EWTN to a board of lay people. As of 2019, EWTN programming was available through "more than 6,000 TV affiliates as well as on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire and YouTube". In addition to its Irondale campus, the network maintains a
Washington, D.C., facility for its news division, along with a
West Coast broadcast facility on the campus of the
Christ Cathedral in
Garden Grove, California. ==Other media==