CAN GOD COMPETE WITH BIG BROTHER? In the ratings battle it's viewers, not souls, that matter. But for the Richard and Judy of evangelical TV, it's both

Today he's exhausted, he's hassled, and next door in the studio, Lesley, his co-host and wife, the Judy to his Richard, is waiting. This is not a good start to the day and it is going to get worse. Gonzo broadcasting for God; it's a helluva business.

God spots have come a long way from Late Call. In the beginning, viewers seeking spiritual solace were stuck with the middle-of-the-road fare the main channels were obliged to offer. Then the internet arrived, Rupert Murdoch said let there be cable and satellite, and the doors to television and radio opened to a different breed of Christian broadcaster. They claim to be reaching listeners and viewers as never before; new stations, such as Revival FM in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire are being given their head; and if regulations are relaxed further, more channels could be on the way. Christian broadcasting has been born again, say its supporters. Not everyone considers that good news. Pondering the scepticism the sector attracts, Brian Bennett, executive director of radio and TV station United Christian Broadcasters (UCB), looks across the Atlantic. "The Americans have spoiled it for everybody,

unfortunately, " he says.

The televangelist scandals of the 1980s were the gift to satirists that just kept giving, and the Reverend Jim Bakker was the most generous patron of all. Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye enjoyed a multimillionaire lifestyle that stretched to a private jet and a Palm Springs mansion with air-conditioned kennels. They lost the lot after Bakker admitted to bedding the church secretary and bribing her to keep quiet about it. She didn't. He was jailed in 1989 for selling the faithful time shares in hotels that did not exist. Although the evangelicals still have a presence on American television, it is nothing like it was. The smarter ministries left the studios and built mall-style mega-churches, one of which is so big it has two waterfalls. Others have diversified into publishing, or the package-holiday business.

Despite these moves upmarket, the British public remains unimpressed. When the communications industry regulator Ofcom asked what kind of religious programming they wanted to see in Britain, the American example was held up as one to be avoided. Religious broadcasting in the US was pushy, bullying and greedy, said respondents.

The Brits would argue they were none of the above, and they react to the label "televangelist" the way Superman does kryptonite. In terms of income, they certainly don't compare to the Americans, the biggest of which earn upwards of dollars-100m (GBP54m) a year. Charity commission filings and company reports show Premier Christian Media Trust, owners of Premier Radio, last registered a gross income of GBP1.6m. Revival Radio, prior to being granted a licence to broadcast continually, had an income of GBP12,000 a year. UCB has a mailing list of 500,000 people who between them send in GBP6m a year. Revelation TV says it brings in under GBP1m, from which comes running costs, wages for 15 staff and rent.

Ofcom bans UK-based television channels, although not radio stations, from making onair appeals for cash. Yet channels based abroad are outside its control. So God TV, which transmits from Jerusalem, can ask viewers in Glasgow or Surrey for money, but the two UKbased channels, UCB TV in Stoke on Trent, and Revelation in London, cannot.

Ofcom is reviewing its rules and a decision will be announced later this year. For the Conders, a lifting of the ban would mean they could employ more people. Besides Lesley, the couple's two sons work for the channel, their youngest daughter presents the children's show, and their other daughter is a camera operator.

Revelation HQ can be found a few streets away from Great Portland Street hospital, spawning ground for the rich and famous. There is nothing glamorous about Revelation's home. It's a maze of rooms above a row of shops on a block that houses several other broadcasters. Next door, in the kind of coincidence that makes a person believe in the existence of a higher force, or a landlord with a sense of humour, is The Islam Channel. The Conders live in a flat around the corner.

The phone-in this morning has begun in typically freestyle fashion. "Sharon, you walked across the shot, " cries Tom Russell, director/ cameraman, to the production assistant/floor manager. At Revelation, everyone has a slash in their job title. Russell does four days a week at the station between jobs for the BBC and ITV. He is fiercely protective of the Conders, as will emerge later.

Onair, Conder has the pallor of porridge. The generally knackered state of the Revelation team, indeed, turns out to be the main subject of the phone-in. "We need to make some changes here, " he tells viewers, "because we can't go on." After three and a half years of long days, the strain is showing.

The calls pour in. Shane says he'll come in and "clean up, anything". Cheryl begs them to keep going because she is disabled, in constant pain and the station is like family to her. "You put up with all of that, " says Conder to Cheryl, "and I'm moaning." He puts his head in his hands. "Sorry."

God's broadcasters say they are meeting needs that the established church, and mainstream channels, are not. The way people want to worship is changing, says Peter Kerridge of Christian broadcasters and publishers the Premier Media Group. "There are people who have maybe been disillusioned or disenfranchised by church who nevertheless want some kind of spiritual input into their lives, " he says. "Rather than turning up in church they are tuning in or logging on."

With almost 700 television and radio stations out there, do God's broadcasters have the right stuff to tempt mainstream viewers and listeners? Harvey Thomas, head of the Fellowship of European Broadcasters, a lobbying and professional group for Christian channels, is sceptical. "You've got to be a pretty enthusiastic, practising, believing Christian to go home and tune into these programmes, " he says.

Like other Christian broadcasters, Revelation earns most of its money from selling airtime to ministries that want to broadcast their own church services and chat shows. In the main, that means sweaty men shouting into microphones and octogenarians in sweaters quoting scripture. After an evening of this, Crossroads begins to look like Citizen Kane.

None of the outfits approached for this article could give precise audience figures, preferring to point to the growing number of phone calls or letters they receive as proof of their popularity. Some claimed to have audiences in the tens of thousands, others hundreds of thousands. There's no way to verify this because they're too small to register in the official statistics in their own right.

Thomas, who ran Billy Graham's crusades for 15 years and was Margaret Thatcher's director of communications, reckons they are almost exclusively preaching to the choir, in other words the less than 2-per cent of Britons who call themselves committed Christians (in contrast to the 54-per cent of Americans who would say the same). "All the Christian broadcasters are convincing themselves they're doing huge jobs of evangelism, " says Thomas, "but the truth is we know that is not the case."

Revelation's new music channel is giving it the kind of crossover appeal Christian broadcasters crave. While the discussion shows are harum scarum, the music slots have a slicker feel to them, reflecting Conder's long career in the biz. Born in Kendal, he moved to Scotland with his family before settling in Darlington. He remembers almost nothing about Scotland except the pipers that marched down his street. "That's why I became a drummer, " he says. By 16, he had joined Joe Brown and the Bruvvers in London.

After he went into music production and married Lesley, a teacher, they moved to Florida and ran a recording studio. It was during a trip home, while watching Songs of Praise in fact, that the Lord spoke to him and told him to get into television. God was particularly keen he should go live.

It's not the answer your average telly executive would give, but Conder is to average what chalk is to cheese. With his mockney accent and laid-back air, having a conversation with him feels like playing the interviewer in a remake of This is Spinal Tap, the spoof rockumentary. This is a man, you sense, who has been there, done that and worn a lot of T-shirts with the sleeves cut off.

He's been with Lesley for 25 years, and in that time they've fostered more than 100 children as well as bringing up their own four. It's one of the many things that helps him to help others, he says. "I'm 60, " he says. "I've lived life. I've made as many mistakes as everybody else." Among his troubles he lists divorce, depression, adultery - "before I married Lesley" - and a suicide attempt. I ask why he tried to kill himself.

"Oh gosh, it's a long story, " he says. Lesley, who is 48, jumps in. "It was so, so many years ago. Way before I knew Howard, " she says. Conder begins to say something about his first marriage but trails off. "What I'm saying, " he rallies, "is that I can relate to just about anyone out there."

Lesley describes later how viewers come up to them in the street and in shops, singing the station's theme tune, wanting to shake their hands. The same affection can be seen among the Revelation staff. They're a young crowd with a let's-do-the-show-right-here attitude. It's like living at high altitude, which perhaps explains what happens next.

I'm talking to Abigale Sasu and IsaiahRaymond Dyer, presenters of the station's UK Gospel Live. The latter has already made a name for himself with his Mobo-award winning band, Raymond and Co, but television is something else, he says. "I'm loving it, loving it, loving it!" The camera returns the compliment. He could walk into a job with any channel tomorrow, although an episode from his past might make a few headlines. While a teenager, he committed armed robbery with a knife and was sentenced to two years. It was in prison that he was "born again".

Now 33 and having turned his life around, he wants to show others there is a better way. The music, the bling and the attitude help him get the message across to a generation that might not otherwise listen. "Jesus said you should be fishers of men, " he says, "but he never said what bait to use."

The mood is broken when someone comes in to say the door to the Conders' flat has been booted in and the place ransacked. A prayer meeting is called in the studio. Bands, staff and audience members are standing around in the half-gloom like a Top of the Pops crowd between sets. Dyer leads the prayer. There are forces that don't like the message that's going out, he says. We must be watchful, be prayerful. His voice grows louder, more insistent. People start to chant, swaying back and forth, waving their arms. One woman is so lost in the moment her eyes have gone up into the back of her head. Russell, the director/ cameraman, sees me and The Herald's photographer and becomes agitated. He wants us out. We go, but only to next door where there is a live feed from the studio. I can see and hear Dyer better than before. This is not just a job, he shouts. The devil is out there.

After the amens the atmosphere clicks back to normal so fast it's almost abnormal. Throughout the evening, in conversations here and there, the same refrain is repeated: Revelation is being targeted by enemies. Later, I ask Dyer what's going on. Weren't the Conders just unlucky?

Possibly, he says, but strange things happen when you try to press home God's message. "It's almost unexplainable to the average person who doesn't understand the faith, " he says, "but if you look in the scripture you'll see that when Jesus was born Herod tried to kill him. When Moses was born the pharaoh tried to kill all the Hebrew boys. Spokesmen for God have always been attacked."

Next day, Lesley has another go at explaining how the burglary is part of a bigger picture. If you are "a wishy-washy, mediocre Christian" and you're not really doing much for God then life is okay, she says. But Revelation is growing bigger and stronger, it's reaching the Muslim community, it's speaking out on controversial issues such as abortion and creationism. "We've really risen to another level, " she says. "Our programmes are becoming so popular and we feel, and many of our viewers feel, that Satan is absolutely furious with this."

Satan and his ways had been discussed during that morning's phone-in, but it was not the only subject. Lesley began the show by apologising for "the absolute total rudeness" of a guest on the previous night's World in Focus. During what amounted to an hour-long rant, the guest had called the Koran a wicked and violent book and said Muslims were lost for ever. It was train-wreck TV an ugly sight. At one point, an increasingly desperateConder suggested someone from The Islam Channel next door come in to restore balance. Perhaps fortunately, the neighbours were gone for the night.

Whatever else it has done, the new style of Christian broadcasting has kept Ofcom on its toes. In 2004, after a similar programme, this time on the appointment of gay bishops, Ofcom upheld a complaint against Revelation for airing derogatory views about gay people and reminded the licensee, Conder, about the need for balance and respect for others' beliefs.

The mother and father of all code breaches was committed six years ago by God TV, or the God Channel as it was then called. The station, founded by Rory and Wendy Alec, had previously been censured for soliciting donations on air and showing exorcisms. The last straw for the regulators came after the station broadcast an advertisement which called homosexuality "an abomination", claimed "satanic hordes" had seized political power in Europe and referred to unborn babies being burnt or experimented on.

As a result of showing that advert, for which the channel was fined a hefty GBP20,000, and because of the organisation's global reach and riches, God TV has attracted attention. Victor Lewis-Smith, the television critic, has accused it of broadcasting "homophobic, hatefilled, rabble-rousing fundamentalist bile, fulminating against everyone who does not share its message".

When he confronted them, they adopted the unorthodox media-relations technique of slamming the phone down on him. These days, God TV is more subtle in its approach to inquiries. After an international run-around worthy of The Italian Job, a London PR firm eventually e-mailed a statement.

In summary, this said God TV had an annual global budget of GBP20m; it was aiming for an audience of one billion; it moved to Israel to broadcast from the birthplace of Christianity and not in response to the regulator's criticisms; the advert in question was the result of "an editing error"; and strict guidelines now operate to control what is aired. It went on: "Whilst we do believe in freedom of speech, we do have to work within the broadcasting guidelines. The Christian message is one we want to spread as far and wide as possible, and TV is an important medium in doing that."

By definition, all evangelists want to spread their message, but there is a wall between those who share their beliefs and those who do not. On one side stand those who think homosexuality is wrong, abortion should be banned, Muslims must be converted, creationism wins out over Darwinism, etc. On the other stands the majority who disagree, find such views offensive, or don't much care.

While evangelical broadcasters say they want to appeal to both sides, and some claim to have no stance at all on controversial issues, the more candid ones admit their room for manoeuvre is nil.

"Anyone who doesn't know Jesus is eligible to watch TV, " says Brian Bennett of UCB, "and we have to find programming that is relevant to them, but we will not condone homosexuality." Conder says he won't compromise what he holds to be the word of God.

That leaves the new breed of Christian broadcaster with a problem of biblical proportions. In an age of mass media their message is not appealing to the increasingly secular, liberal masses. The future, Harvey Thomas believes, lies not in setting up more channels but in making "really cracking" programmes that can be sold to the mainstream. "If I go on a Christian radio or television station in this country, " he says, "it would be a miracle if I drew more than 50,000 people. When I do Thought for the Day I have close to six million."

Over at Revelation, the future lies in God's hands. "I don't like TV, " says Conder, growing nostalgic for his recording studio. If the Lord tells him this season in his life is over, he's happy to walk away.

On the small screen, as in life, the big guy upstairs always has the last say.