Talk:The Wisdom Television Network
I visited the "network" a few times in 2002. It is almost impossible to convey the sense of unreality that saturated the place. At the top, this nice old man, Bill Turner, all around him, these legions of people taking his paychecks, mostly wasting time, telling him stories so he'd keep giving them more money. The odd thing was, he seemed to want it that way. With God as my witness he did. It's almost like he wanted to spend every penny he had before he passed. He was a delightful and funny man. The same can't be said for the people around him. Yes - He had money -- but he never seemed to push that fact around. He was trying to do good, but truth is, his ideas seemed to lack real depth in that they were a re-hash of basic 'think and be rich' philosophies he loved to talk about.
The company lawyer? -- I did meet him and he did bring his dog to the office. I asked an employee about that after the visit, and she just laughed. She didn't know why he did.
To call this place a network, in any real sense, is a mistake. A wannabe network maybe, a real network, no way. It had no viewers, and no plan to get them. It had no real programming. It had no sales department, by Bill Turners design, which I don't remember but it was something like, "We'll do it later." It was a strange and fascinating place however, but seemed to me, quite obviously doomed -- 100%, no chance at all, nose dive, doomed -- from the beginning. They operated out of an old coal office in Bluefield, which felt to me, like a coal mine. Bill had a big new office built -- used some state of WV money to do it too I read -- but did not live to see it finished. It was a strange town too. The locals -- and there were lots of them who worked at the company -- were often not friendly to Bill Turner's idea. They sort of thought he was the Antichrist, as his ideas leaned toward 'new age' whatever the hell that is, which in fact he wasn't. Bill's 'network' was really a religious channel in the old fashioned model of preach TV. They called it something else -- but when you looked at it, you saw, for the most part - religion in thin disguise. The other strange thing about this operation was the intense divisions, ideological & political divisions, within the company. Lots of fundamentalists -- right wing, hardcore Conservative Christians who loathed Bill's ideas in private, but took his money with big smiles in public. Some of these people were in positions of considerable power. These people appeared to operate behind the scenes opposing ideas, missions, plans they they felt violated their beliefs. But there were other factions too. Bill's wife at the time -- one of many I was told -- held considerable sway and seemed to yank the company is a new direction every week.
I recall ... A man in radio named Daniel Sunshine A radio producer named Christine Craft A bookeeper named John Bruens
Signed -- Remembering in California -
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