Monitor Television Fades to Black

THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, GOT OUT of the cable-television business after running up $235 million in losses over seven years. Shutdown costs -- including severance packages for the 400 employees of Monitor Television who were laid off -- will run another $45 million. While church officials search for a buyer for the cable operation, the Monitor Channel will broadcast reruns. The channel managed to attract about 4 million subscribers before its demise, a bantamweight entry in the cable ring compared with the likes of the Discovery Channel, which has upwards of 57 million homes.

The television fiasco has triggered deep schisms within the Christian Science Church over the use and accountability of church funds. Thus far, officials have borrowed $41.5 million from the institution's pension fund to cover operating losses. The three top officials of Monitor Television, including chairman and chief executive officer John Hoagland Jr., have resigned. Some influential church members are pressing Christian Science leaders for a full accounting of church spending on the television project. The move to television was controversial within the church from the first. Many officials were critical because it drained funds from the highly respected church newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor.