The bulk of PAX stations are low-power, UHF outlets (only 4 of the network’s 96 affiliates are VHF outlets). Each station has, typically, fewer than five personnel. No PAX station has a news division or produces its own local news. Essentially, each PAX station serves purely as a distribution site for national programming. The few staff members at each station are dedicated to local and regional advertising sales that form the majority of PAX-TV’s revenue stream. In prime time, particularly, this emphasis raises the cost-per-point to an immensely profitable level that allows PAX to endure and prosper in spite of relatively low ratings compared with its competitors.

In terms of network identity and audience appeals, while most early press surrounding PAX-TV’s emergence referred to it as a “Christian network,” Paxson does not consider his stations to be explicitly Christian. Rather, Paxson, his executives, and network promotions and programming all posit PAX-Net as a national family network representing a nondenominational yet spiritually uplifting haven for viewers presumed to feel alienated by mainstream media. In this regard, the former chief executive officer, Jeff Sagansky, has described PAX-Net’s brand as “upbeat, positive, family-friendly,” characterized by “no sex, no violence, no profanity,” and featuring “values-based spirituality” with “no cynicism.”

In spite of its anti-network focus, PAX-TV has succeeded largely due to strategic alliances with traditional networks that have allowed PAX to marshal capital, extend market penetration, and procure program product. PAX-TV started broadcasting in 1998 with programs that, while clearly fitting its professed brand ethic, were also almost exclusively former CBS program fare, particularly programming owned and distributed by CBS Films (a film production and distribution studio separate from though related to the CBS television network). Such programs included Touched by an Angel (which remains, at this writing, the most popular program on PAX network), Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Diagnosis Murder, Christy, Dave’s World, Life Goes On, and Promised Land. In its first year, PAX’s entire weeknight prime-time schedule consisted of series that had aired or were concurrently airing on CBS (i.e., syndicated on PAX while in first run on CBS). Further, PAX-TV’s day-to-day operations were overseen by former CBS Entertainment executive Jeff Sagansky (who resigned in August 2003 after five years at the helm). By the year 2000, PAX expanded its “PAX Originals” programming to include a range of original dramatic series and reality and game-show series. Examples include Doc (featuring country and western singer Billy Ray Cyrus as a country doctor transplanted to New York City), The Ponderosa (a prequel to Bonanza), Miracle Pets, Twice in a Lifetime, Supermarket Sweep, and Next Big Star. PAX currently features one or more original series six nights a week in prime time. The network also continues to program syndicated shows formerly on CBS, such as Diagnosis Murder and Touched by an Angel, as well as to rebroadcast programming that originated on NBC, including the game show The Weakest Link and the drama Mysterious Ways.

In relation to the growing “family values” media niche, PAX remains distinct because it is arguably more accessible to interested viewers than family-oriented channels available only via cable or through a direct broadcast satellite dish. Unlike the family-oriented Hallmark Channel, or ABC Family and its sister network the Disney Channel, PAX stations remain avail-able in most markets via traditional over-air broadcast delivery (though the quality of these signals is often compromised due to their origination on UHF).

PAX’s institutional growth and development largely was staked on provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Telecommunication Act’s significance for PAX-Net was twofold: it upheld must-carry rules that require cable franchises to carry all local broadcast channels, including the low-power UHF stations that make up the 92 of the 96 stations in the PAX network chain. This provided PAX-TV with a much larger start-up audience than it might have otherwise been able to attract. The 1996 Act also relaxed restrictions that limited the number and types of local stations individual companies could own which enabled the development of duopolies in major television markets. In 1999 this enabled Paxson to sell 32 percent of his company to NBC at a cost of $415 million. The terms of the NBC-PAX partnership gave NBC the option to purchase PAX television stations as well as first-refusal rights on sales of PAX-TV stations located in the top-70 U.S. television markets. Paxson retained the option to buy out the cash value of NBC’s ownership stake as of September 2004. The PAX-NBC partnership was originally designed to allow the networks to share programming and to enable programs preempted by local NBC affiliates to be aired within that same market on PAX. In most markets, PAX affiliates also “repurpose” or rerun the local NBC affiliate’s local late newscast, a half hour after its first airing on NBC. And yet recent FCC rules changes, proposed legislation regarding UHF spectrum auctions, and PAX-Net’s professed “family values” orientation have led to uneasy relations with media industry critics, some legislators, and strained relations with NBC.

Initially, PAX-TV’s start-up was marred by an uproar over its explicitly conservative promotions in major news and television industry trade papers condemning the major networks for “promoting ‘alternative lifestyles’”—a phrase often invoked in the press to refer to gay and lesbian populations. Later, PAX battled NBC over its Memphis station’s refusal to broadcast Will & Grace (a program that features two homosexual characters in its ensemble cast) because of PAX executives’ perceptions that the highly rated NBC program conflicted with PAX’s family-friendly programming mission. Because local Memphis affiliate WMC-TV was contractually obligated to carry a Memphis Grizzlies basketball game, Memphis’s PAX affiliate, WPXX, was slated to air NBC’s entire Thursday night lineup that night. WPXX agreed to air only the first and last hour of the prime-time bloc, thus excising Will & Grace and Just Shoot Me from the Memphis market area.

More recently, the PAX-NBC partnership has been jeopardized by NBC’s purchase of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. While Bud Paxson entered into the NBC partnership with hopes that PAX-Net would one day be a full-fledged member of the NBC network “family,” he has stated that NBC’s acquisition of Telemundo suggested NBC’s lack of commitment to PAX on three fronts: the potential purchase by NBC of PAX stations; NBC’s commitment to strengthen PAX’s business; and as regards the development of shared NBC-PAX programming. As ownership rules restrict operation of more than two stations in major markets, PAX-Net affiliates were now placed at risk in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, where NBC and Telemundo both have a strong presence. Finally, pending legislation proposed by the George W. Bush White House—in anticipation of U.S. TV’s transition from analog to digital—would require clearing television broadcasters from channels 60 to 69 to be auctioned for wireless radio use. This would have a potentially devastating impact on PAX because over 17 percent of its network affiliates are located in the UHF spectrum at channel 60 or above. As of fall 2003, the PAX-Net station group was opening discussion with potential buyers in anticipation of the likely conclusion of its partnership with NBC, set for renegotiation in 2004 (at which point Paxson has the option to buy out NBC’s large stake in his network).