LeSEA
wikipedia | 2013-08-04 15:55


LeSEA Broadcasting (Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Association), also known as World Harvest Television, is an American Christiantelevision network with over 40 affiliate stations in a number of U.S. markets, on the Fixed Service Satellite Galaxy 16 C bandtransponder 15, and on satellite overseas.

LeSEA is based in South Bend, Indiana and broadcasts Christian programming. Two primary shows broadcast from the studios are their flagship program The Harvest Show and Live from Studio B. Pete Sumrall, son of the network's founder the late Dr. Lester Sumrall, serves as its president and chief executive officer.

The Harvest Show, a one-hour talk show which has a format that is somewhat similar to the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club and is hosted by Valerie Lowe, Stefan Radelich, Drew Sumrall and Chuck Freeby. Guests have included Millard Fuller, Dominic Mance, Michael Landon, Jr. and Susie Scott Krabacher. Some of the program hosts serve other functions within the organization; Radelich is executive director of one of the LeSEA ministries, Feed The Hungry.

Live from Studio B is a 30-minute in-studio concert show from studio B, which features performances from various contemporary and alternative Christian artists and bands. They have hosted such artists as Katy Hudson, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, the late Rich Mullins, Newsboys and others.

 


In addition to its religious programming, LeSEA stations broadcast local high school athletics through their own production trucks, and also broadcast college football and basketball under deals with syndicators such as ESPN Plus and the SEC Network, while South Bend station WHME-TV also airs a good amount of programming revolving around the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, not including live football games.

Also, like Trinity Broadcasting Network, FamilyNet and participating local stations, LeSEA airs The 700 Club every weekday. And overnights each weekend, they air The Best of Harvest, a rebroadcast of a previously-aired program. In addition to its many LeSEA-owned stations, network television affiliates in different parts of the country began airing The Best of Harvest and Live from Studio Bamong different programs from LeSEA. At other times the output consists of shows such as ('Green Acres', 'Hawaii Five-0' etc.), paid advertising (such as for animated Christian children's cartoon series available on various video formats, health supplements and products, etc.).

On February 3, 2010, LeSea announced the sale of KWHD to Liberman Broadcasting in 2010; the station switched to Liberman's Estrella TV network after the sale was completed, under the callsign KETD, though the World Harvest scheduled remained on KETD-DT2 under an addition agreement.

History 
1957 Lester Sumrall establishes the Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Association (LeSEA).
1968 LeSEA Broadcasting's flagship radio station, WHME 103.1, begins broadcasting in South Bend as the result of the vision Lester Sumrall had that a time would come when Christian broadcasting would much more difficult to air.
1970 Prayerline is established to provide twenty-four hour help for people seeking comfort and encouragement from fundamental Christian 'prayer counselors'.
1972 LeSEA acquires a defunct Indianapolis, Indiana religious station, WURD channel 40 (which was only on the air briefly in 1971), and changes call letters to "WHMB-TV". ([1])
1976 LeSEA acquires Miami based religious station WFCB channel 45, renaming the station "WHFT-TV".
1977 WHME-TV 46 goes on the air in South Bend.
1980 WHFT was sold to the Trinity Broadcasting Network; it continues to maintain these calls to the present day.
1985 Short-wave radio is added to LeSEA Broadcasting when World Harvest Radio (WHRI), Angel 1 signs on the air, covering Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
1985 KWHB-TV 47 goes on the air in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
1985 KWHE-TV 14 goes on the air in Honolulu, Hawaii.
1986 First year of LeSEAs outdoor Christian music festival, World Harvest, hosted by WHME-FM for free for all their listeners. 1988Fi re destroys LeSEA Broadcasting headquarter building. Two years later, the new building is completed and dedicated. WHKE in Kenosha, Wisconsin goes on the air; station also serves Milwaukee.
1990 KWHD-TV 53 goes on the air in Denver, Colorado and KWHS-LD 51 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1993 KWHR (Angel 3) goes on the air covering China and Eastern Asia.
LeSEA's full-service tour agency is established, LeSEA Tours.
1994 WHNO-TV 20 goes on the air in New Orleans, Louisiana.
1995 LeSEA Internet Services is opened from South Bend.
WHKE sold to Paxson Communications, who would re-call the station as "WPXE".
1996 Dr. Lester Sumrall passes away at age 83 (April 28).
1997 KWHR (Angel 4) goes on the air covering the South Pacific.
1998 WHRA (Angel 5) goes on the air covering Africa and the Middle East.
2000 First phase of Spread the Word campaign is launched to distribute 100,000 Bibles.LeSEA's Annual Christian music festival draws record numbers of 50,000+ for the first time.
2001 LeSEA acquires Middle East Television (METV), a Cyprus-based family channel, from the Christian Broadcasting Network.
2002 Second phase of Spread the Word campaign is launched to distribute 50,000 Bibles.LeSEA's stations begin converting into a digital format regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
2005 WHNO-TV 20 taken off the air due to Hurricane Katrina; returns on December 3.

LeSEA also operates one US shortwave location, at South Carolina, they closed their operations on the big island of Hawaii, near Na'alehu (KHWR) and also their Greenbush, ME (WHRA) shortwave facilities in the past few years. Programming is heard currently from Palau, serving the Far East.

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