News

Image

TORONTO, November 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – What does a former mainstream sportscaster of 20-years experience fired for privately backing true marriage do with his multimedia talents? He launches an internet broadcasting channel in his own basement with a mission to change the culture by fearlessly engaging with it.

Damian Goddard, a backboned courageous Christian, has not looked back after Rogers Sportsnet fired him a day after his 2011 tweet supporting the true definition of marriage.

Image

Now two and a half years later, Goddard is returning to what he loves doing best – broadcasting. But with the launch of IgniteTV, he will not be providing masterful commentary on hockey, football, or baseball, but encouraging people to live their faith out loud.

“There is beautiful order to this world we live in,” Goddard told LifeSiteNews.com. “The creator of that order is obviously God and we are called as people of faith to not only go along with that notion, but to uphold it and to battle for it. That essentially is the heart, the essence, of IgniteTV.”

Goddard’s online show, launched last week, provides viewers with a play-by-play alternative viewpoint on the most pressing cultural issues of the day.

“Engage the culture” is IgniteTV’s mission, he said on his maiden voyage show. “We’ve got to change the culture by engaging it.”

“We are living in very special times, and I think it calls for endeavors just like IgniteTV, based out of my basement, my home, turning it into a broadcast facility with the hope to bring to light some of the most pertinent issues in play in our culture,” he said. 

The name, IgniteTV, reflects Goddard’s goal to “spark conversations.” He prefers his program not be labeled “faith-based” since he believes that faith should not be separated from the rest of life.

“Everything [you do] is supposed to be faith-based,” he said.

Goddard has put his money where his mouth is, having to refinance his mortgage turn his basement into a broadcast studio. Goddard has spared nothing to recreate the professional environment he once worked in. This includes multiple panning cameras, professional lighting, a teleprompter, and a sound/video board. A crew of 5-6, most of them volunteers, help produce each show.

Image

Goddard does not shy from taking on the most controversial issues and relating them to his mission.

“Here on IgniteTV our whole cause is to look at the political spectrum, sports, arts, entertainment, film, music — Miley Cyrus nude on a wrecking ball — and to put the kind of spin on it that lends itself to glorification of God and why we’re here – to lead souls to heaven,” he said on his show.

Goddard’s biggest challenge is lack of funds. He also struggles with the business aspect of running his own studio. “I’m not a business man to be completely frank with you,” he said.

Despite all the early technical glitches that stalled the first show, the financial concerns, and the naysayers, Goddard believes that God is on his side and will not abandon him.

“I honestly believe that the Holy Spirit is driving me in this. I’m too dumb to run a business [on my own],” he said.

The program, which will eventually be aired three times a week, is streamed in high-definition using Vimeo. The second installment will be available tomorrow.

Goddard interviewed LifeSiteNews’ own Steve Jalsevac live via Skype during his inaugural show. Jalsevac spoke about the power of truth in media as the game-charger for cultural renewal.

Jalsevac hopes that IgniteTV is successful.

Image

“There’s a severe need to balance the mainstream media. Damian Goddard is bringing to the internet world an alternative voice that will counter a lot of the propaganda and misinformation on important issues that the public is forced to consume all the time because they have no other choices,” he said.

Jalsevac also noted how more and more people like Goddard are abandoning traditional modes of communicating truth in media because of the “complete intolerance of mainstream media owners to uncomfortable truths” and their “totalitarian control of the message”.

“There is clearly a great need for what Goddard is doing, as his own personal story testifies,” he said.

Donate via Paypal to IgniteTV here.