Behind the Catholic Radio & Television Network (CRTN) is a modern production studio specialized in producing reports and documentaries about the Catholic Church existing in remote areas. The broadcasts primarily serve to support evangelization efforts and promote solidarity with the suffering Church worldwide.
Additionally, having this in-house network offers an opportunity for the work of Aid to the Church in Need to be further publicized. Our Media network, allows us to provide TV and radio productions to stations around the world.
“CRTN is a production and media service that is globally unique in the Church.“
In 2018, the studio produced 390 TV and radio programs in all language versions, which were then were broadcast on 102 TV and 475 radio stations. In addition to documentary films and interview broadcasts such as “Where God Weeps” and “Donde Dios Llora”, we produced a considerable number of short films tailored to specific ACN fundraisers.
In non-Christian areas in particular, spreading the Gospel through radio and television plays a very important role. The best example we can give is in the Middle East, where there are more than 600 Muslim television channels, but only two Christian stations.
Aid to the Church in Need oversees the establishment of Catholic radio and television stations in the region and supports the required training of staff members, thereby ensuring quality and professionalism.
CRTN achieved record distribution in 2018 with their documentary films alone: the broadcasts reached 102 television stations worldwide. These included seven TV stations in North America, ten in Europe, 55 in Latin America via SIPCATV and 23 TV channels in Russia via Blagovest-Media.
Every day, broadcasts reach tens of millions worldwide. In addition to production and distribution, CRTN also supports a number of worldwide TV distribution initiatives through consulting and programming services. What’s more, CRTN established the global Catholic television resource network crtn.org over 20 years ago, which gives Catholic producers and television stations the opportunity to facilitate the presentation, exchange and distribution of Catholic programs worldwide.
In addition, we have compiled a web catalogue containing 1,363 productions. In 2018, 274 producers and 140 television stations used this service, which is unique in the Church. A CRTN newsletter, a CRTN Facebook page with 2,000 followers and the CRTN YouTube channel round off our media service.