About Life is Worth Living

In 1951, Fulton Sheen moved from hosting his weekly Sunday night radio broadcast, The Catholic Hour, to hosting the Catholic television program, Life is Worth Living. 

This unpaid, unscripted show aired every Tuesday evening at 8pm for six years. In the beginning stages of the show, only three television stations originally broadcast it. However, that number jumped to fifteen in less than two months after Life and Time magazine ran a feature story on Sheen. The magazine piece caused Sheen’s popularity to blossom. He began receiving fan mail at a rate of 8,500 letters per week and juggling four times as many ticket requests that could be fulfilled. He even became the first to conduct a religious service ever broadcast on TV.

Over the course of the show, Sheen’s Life is Worth Living competed for airtime with popular television stars such as Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. Sheen's show held its own, and in 1952, just one year after it’s debut, he won an Emmy Award for "Most Outstanding Television Personality." Fulton Sheen credited the Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - for their valuable contribution to his success. This television show ran until 1957, boasting as many as 30 million weekly viewers.