A religious TV channel has been fined £150,000 for giving UK airtime to an evangelist selling “miracle spring water” that was claimed to cure illnesses such as lung cancer and diabetes and produce huge financial windfalls.
Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom, penalised the operator of The Word Network, a religious channel aimed at the Christian community available via pay TV, after an investigation into the programme Peter Popoff Ministries.
During two episodes of the show, fronted by the US TV evangelist Popoff and his wife, viewers were repeatedly asked to order the ministry’s miracle spring water.
Popoff, who has previously been rebuked by UK regulators, made claims about the product’s supposed miraculous powers and aired testimonies from members of his congregation as he invited viewers to order it.
Those providing the testimonials claimed that pouring the water over their hands brought about recovery from illnesses such as lung cancer, diabetes and intestinal disease, as well as curing drug addiction.
Others said they subsequently came into large sums of money – in one instance $64,000 – started a new business opportunity, received a new home or were “delivered” from student loan debt.
Each time, Popoff repeated or sought to bolster the claims using phrases such as: “Did you hear that? You mean God took care … after you used the miracle spring water?”
The licensee that operates the channel, Word Network Operating Company Inc, initially said its audience was predominantly in the US and it had a “limited understanding” of Ofcom’s concerns, which it attributed to a “matter of cultural or market difference”.
The parent company subsequently said it had taken the decision to change the contract relating to the Peter Popoff Ministries so that it would no longer air on its channel in the UK.
In its ruling, Ofcom said that it “considered that these claims related to viewers’ health and wealth and such claims had the potential to cause harm”.
“Ofcom considered these breaches were serious,” the regulator said. “The licensee had not taken appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the [broadcasting] code. While Ofcom considered that the breaches represented a particularly serious failure of compliance, we concluded that the breaches in this case did not go so far as to constitute a deliberate or reckless act by the licensee.”
