EWTN
American and multinational religious cable and satellite television station

The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is an American basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock and commercial-free Catholic programming. It is the largest Catholic television network in the United States, and is purported to be "the world's largest religious media network", (and according to the network itself) reaching 425 million people in 160 countries, with 11 networks.
The network was originally founded by Mother Angelica , in 1980 and began broadcasting on 15 August 1981 from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, which Mother Angelica founded in 1962. She hosted her own show, Mother Angelica Live, until health issues led to her retirement in September 2001. As of 2017, Michael P. Warsaw, who is a consultant to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications, leads EWTN.
In addition to its television network, EWTN owns the National Catholic Register newspaper, which it acquired in January 2011, and Catholic News Agency. The network maintains an online presence through its primary site, EWTN.com, and it has a dedicated commercial site, EWTNReligiousCatalogue.com. EWTN also has a 24-hour radio network, offering Catholic talk and worship programming to about 350 radio stations around the U.S. as well as SiriusXM Satellite Radio and shortwave radio. Some of the schedule is the audio from EWTN television shows and some is original programming for radio listeners.
Regular network programs include a daily Catholic Mass and sometimes in the Tridentine Mass format, the traditionalist Stations of the Cross, a taped daily recitation of the Rosary, and daily and weekly news, discussion, and Catechetical programs for both adults and children. Christmas and Easter programming; the installation Masses of bishops and cardinals; coverage of World Youth Days; and Papal visits, deaths, funerals, conclaves, and elections are also presented.
The public source identifies “EWTN” as american and multinational religious cable and satellite television station. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around EWTN, American and multinational.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1276539. VIAF identifies the subject as 146659280. The Library of Congress control number is n85389524. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1981, 1962 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “EWTN” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.