Telethon
A
telethon is a
fundraising event broadcast on
television that lasts many hours or even days, the purpose of which is to raise
money for a charitable, political, or other allegedly worthy cause. Correspondingly, the term is a
portmanteau of "television" and "
marathon."
The format of a telethon usually consists of performances by singers, musicians, comedians, or other entertainers interspersed with pitches for donations. Typically the program is staged on a set containing volunteer telephone operators, a stage, a
tote board that displays the amount of money raised, a band, and a studio audience.
Telethons are held for various organisations around the world. In the
United States, telethons are held for groups such as
Muscular Dystrophy Associations (hosted by
Jerry Lewis and held each
Labor Day weekend), the St. Jude
Children's Hospital; the
Children's Miracle Network, the
Shriners, Armenia Fund, and
Chabad.
The
Public Broadcasting Service and its member stations produce annual pledge drives which are similar in format to telethons, but instead use brief breaks between regular programs to appeal for funds.
Trinity Broadcasting Network, a religious television network, hosts non-stop, week-long, semi-annual telethons called "Praise-a-Thons". The
Christian Broadcasting Network stages a modified form of a telethon twice a year, which runs for approximately one week but is shown for only an hour or so each day. (In its early days, CBN's telethons were of the more traditional form; this format ended when the ministry sold its
CBN Family Channel, which no longer gave it access to a round-the-clock outlet for such telethons.)
In the
United Kingdom, regular telethons are held for charitable groups such as
Comic Relief and the BBC's
Children in Need.
In
Chile, every December of each year since 1978 all TV Networks holds a telethon for raising funds to help handicapped children in called "IRI" (Instituto de Rehabilitacion Infantil) Centers. Since telethon started, $240 million dollars have been collected and nine "IRI" Centers have been constructed. However, it is considered that the great contribution of this crossed has been integration and social commitment respect to the the handicapped.
This idea of telethon inspires to another who celebrates every year in
Mexico,
Brazil and other countries in
Latin America, with the same objectives.
The most successful annual telethon on a per-capita in the world is run over 25 hours in
Western Australia by
Seven Perth for the
Princess Margaret Children's Hospital, Perth.
In 2004, Armenia Fund held an international Telethon that was broadcasted to all major U.S. cities and across the globe. The 12 hour live program was able to raise a record $11.5 million for humanitarian and infrastructure development programs in
Armenia and
Karabakh. That annual telethon is held on
Thanksgiving every year.
The
2004 Asian Tsunami also led to telethons being held in countries such as
Canada (
CTV),
United States (
NBC) and
Australia (a joint telecast between the
Seven Network,
Nine Network and
Network Ten).
Another type of telethon is used to provide income for broadcasting and organizational expenses for broadcasting companies who rely not on advertising, but on the willingness of the viewers to support the company and the broadcasts. In the United States, these stations usually broadcast educational, cultural or religious programming.
The oldest continuing annual telethon in the United States on the same channel is
Green Bay, Wisconsin WBAY-TV's local
Cerebral Palsy telethon that began broadcasting 22 hours on the first weekend of March 1954. As of 2006, they have celebrated their 52nd year of presenting the telethon, which helps provide financial support for equipment for Cerebral Palsy, Inc.
Close behind the Green Bay telethon in longevity is the
WHAS Crusade for Children in
Louisville, Kentucky, which broadcast its first telethon in October 1954 on
WHAS-TV and
WHAS Radio, six months after the first WBAY telethon. While the Crusade for Children is still broadcast on those same stations, it has expanded to radio and television stations in other parts of
Kentucky and
Indiana, as well as streaming video on the Internet. The Crusade is famous for the legions of
firefighters who collect money at road blocks at intersections throughout the area each May and June. The Crusade annually collects more than $5 million in donations for a variety of child-related charities and causes, and remains the most successful local telethon in the United States.
In the United States, it was common in the early days of television for local stations to produce their own telethons benefitting various charities or causes. As
satellite transmission made nationwide telethons practical, local telethons fell out of favor, and most were discontinued with the stations instead affiliating with the MDA or Easter Seals telethons. Only a handful of locally-produced telethins remain, with the Green Bay and Louisville efforts being the most prominent.
