Joni Lamb, co-founder of Daystar TV Network, dies at 65

Joni Lamb, who helped build Daystar Television Network from a single Dallas-Fort Worth station into a global Christian media powerhouse, died Thursday at 65 after health problems and a back injury worsened her condition.

Daystar said Lamb had been keeping serious health matters private before the injury intensified her decline. No cause of death was released. The Daystar board of directors said her faith and the ministry’s audience shaped the network from its start, saying, “Joni’s love for the Lord and for the people we serve shaped this ministry from the beginning. We grieve her loss.”

The loss lands far beyond one family-led ministry. Daystar says it was founded in 1993 by Marcus and Joni Lamb and began with a single Christian station in Dallas-Fort Worth, KMPX. Since then, it has grown into one of the most influential Christian broadcasting operations in the world, carrying programs from figures such as Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes and helping define how Pentecostal and evangelical ministries reach national and international audiences. Daystar now says it is in over 2.4 billion homes worldwide and reaches more than 7.3 billion people, while earlier reporting put its reach at 2.3 billion homes in more than 200 countries.

Lamb was not only behind the scenes. She became a familiar on-air presence through shows including Joni Table Talk and later Ministry Now, giving the network a recognizable face as it expanded from televangelism into a broader evangelical media brand. Local coverage described her as the founder and president of Daystar Television Network in Bedford, Texas, and said she spent nearly four decades on air and in leadership.

Her personal life also drew public attention. In 2010, Lamb and Marcus Lamb disclosed that he had committed infidelity, a crisis the couple said they worked through. Marcus Lamb died in 2021, and Joni Lamb later married Doug Weiss.

Her death closes a defining chapter for a network that fused family ministry, production infrastructure and global religious branding into a powerful broadcast model that changed American religious television. With a leadership team already in place, the immediate question is how Daystar preserves its reach, identity and influence without the woman who helped build it from the beginning.