Paul Crouch

Paul Crouch (born 1934) is the co-founder, chairman and president of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or TBN, the world's largest Christian television network.

Crouch, raised in Missouri, is the son of Pentecostal missionaries. He became interested in amateur radio at an early age and announced he would use such technology to "send the Gospel around the world." He attended the Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Missouri. In the early 1950s he worked for the Assemblies of God as a film librarian. He married his wife, Jan, in 1958. In 1961 he was hired to run the Assemblies of God's broadcast production facility in Burbank, California. From there he left to start TBN in 1973. He claims a vision from God in 1975 led him to move the network into satellite transmission.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2004 reported Crouch's annual personal income as $403,700. The network reports that during the first twenty years of the network's operation, he was paid roughly one-tenth his current income, with the amounts rising in the past ten years as he approached retirement.

Although he stars with his wife in TBN programming, former employees of TBN allege he is essentially estranged from her and lives separately. In September 2004 the Los Angeles Times characterized his lifestyle as a "life of luxury", and reported that Crouch in 1998 paid a former employee a $425,000 formal settlement to keep silent about an alleged homosexual encounter in 1996. TBN officials acknowledge the settlement but characterize the accuser as a liar and an extortionist. The accuser, who has written a book manuscript about the encounter but has been forbidden by an arbitrator to publish it because of the settlement, alleges he was pressured by Crouch into the sex act on fear of losing his job.

Crouch is the author of an autobiography, "Hello World!"