The Christian Broadcasting Network is joining the crowded marketplace of 24 hour news broadcasting. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s news channel is set to air on local television in 15 cities. The network’s CEO, Gordon Robertson, has said that he hopes the channel will bring people together despite the increasingly fractured and biased media landscape.

The new channel, CBN News Channel, will produce original programming and commentary that covers a wide variety of topics including more openly religious content, such as the power of prayer, in addition to more traditional news topics such as Christian persecution in the Middle East. Prior to the founding of the CBN News Channel, Christian Broadcasting Network produced shows and ran them on the ABC Family channel which is currently called Freeform. Now, most of those shows will be run on the CBN News Channel. Among the shows that will be transferred back to CBN are “Jerusalem Dateline,” which focuses on Israel, and “Faith Nation,” which concentrates on politics and political issues. There are also plans for programming that focuses on healthy living and entertainment.

“We don’t always sit here and say, ‘Is there a Bible story that corresponds with this today,’” said news director Rob Allman.

Recently, much of the media was filled with the battle over the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, and CBN News Channel was no exception during its soft launch in a handful of cities. Now that the confirmation fight is over, however, CBN News Channel is likely to return to more regular programming.

The channel is new, but that has not stopped people from already criticizing the openly Christian network as being biased. Robertson, however, said that critics were missing the point of the channel. “What I think is missing is an opportunity for someone to come in and just tell their story from their point of view, not give it an angle, not try to be argumentative,” Robertson said. “I think we’ve been criticized for allowing people to speak. But from my point of view, we want that.”

The list of cities where CBN News Channel will be broadcast is available at CBN.com, and the programming can also be viewed online.