the Monitor Channel which airs more than 70 hours of television each week on VSB's Channel 11.

The Christian Science Monitor Channel will be dropped from the air completely on June 28 after the Boston-based network failed to sell. The network is owned by the Christian Science Church which has been plagued by scandal and enormous debts.

DeFontes Broadcasting president Mr. Kenneth DeFontes said he was confident he could secure new programming. He said Channel 11 was intended to carry primarily news and information shows, and while he said he would strive to replace Monitor with a similar type of programming, he was not sure yesterday if he would succeed.

"I have some ideas at this point,'' he said. "I will come up with something.'' In an unprecedented public accounting of their finances on Monday, Christian Science Church leaders said the TV venture drained the church's reserve account and led it to borrow more than $100 million from a pension fund and other sources last year.

A meeting held in Boston was disrupted by shouts from some of the 4,000 members who attended but were not allowed to speak.

"We are people who look to prayer as an answer. That's how we ultimately deal with this,'' Church president Mr. Nathan A. Talbot said of the angry comments.

"My guess is that these people are going to go back and pray about this issue,'' he said. "I think as the years go by, we'll find unity.'' The church has endured months of dissension over financial losses, the publication of a book some have said is counter to the teachings of the church and other policy disputes.

The church has traditionally kept financial information secret even from its members. But many critics -- among them a number of rank-and-file members -- were unmoved after the long-awaited annual meeting.

Church directors revealed that they had wiped out their reserve account and borrowed $115 million from endowment, trust and pension funds to cover the cost of now-discontinued TV operations.

Church officials last week announced lay-offs of 100 people and a 10 percent cut in expenses they said would produce a balanced budget of $70 million in the current fiscal year. Last year's budget was $215.5 million, more than half of which went into TV operations.

Television has siphoned $259 million from the church since 1984, more than a third of the operating budget, treasurer John L. Selover said.

Shutting down the Monitor Channel cable network will cost an additional $68.5 million.

An internal debate that began over the high cost of TV projects widened when the church's board of directors published a biography likening church founder Mary Baker Eddy to Jesus Christ, contrary to her teachings.

Critics have charged that the book, which had been rejected by the church in 1947, was published so the board could get its hands on $97 million left it by the author. The bequest is now mired in the California courts.

The Monitor Channel, which began broadcasting in May last year in the US and came on the air in January this year in Bermuda, cost $250 million to launch and has lost $4 million a month, church officials have said.

The church has other media interests, including the Christian Science Monitor, World Monitor Magazine, public radio and shortwave radio.

MR. KENNY DEFONTES -- new ideas for Channel 11.