Salem Communications
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Salem Communications (NASDAQ: SALM) is a U.S. media company specializing in evangelical Christian and conservative political talk radio. It owns 99 commercial radio stations, 65 of which are in the top 25 markets. Salem is the sixth largest U.S. radio station owner after Clear Channel, Cumulus, CBS Radio, Citadel, and Entercom. The company focuses on acquiring radio stations with powerful transmitters, unlike most Christian broadcasters who tend to purchase many low-power translators. Salem owns slightly more AM than FM stations, and covers one-third of the U.S population.[3] Salem is a U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values.
Salem Communications was founded by Stuart Epperson and Edward Atsinger III and, unlike many Christian broadcasters, is a for-profit corporation. [1] Also unlike their non-profit counterparts, Salem stations are found on high-powered signals on the commercial radio band spectrum.
Salem's CFO approximates that the company's income is as follows:
- 50% Teaching and Talk stations
- 25% Christian contemporary music stations
- 15% Secular news/talk stations
- 10% Magazines and Websites
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[edit] Company information
Salem is based at 4880 Santa Rosa Road in Camarillo, California, northwest of Los Angeles in neighboring Ventura County[2]. In addition to Contemporary Christian music and talk radio, Salem's station formats include oldies, country, and a Spanish music station in Portland, Oregon. It sold its sports station in Cleveland in December 2006.
Many of Salem's stations are licensed to one of a number of subsidiaries, organized by geographical area and media cluster as the company has acquired new stations and their previous licensees. The list of Salem's licensees include:
- ATEP Radio, Inc.
- Bison Media, Inc.
- Caron Broadcasting, Inc.
- CCM Communications, Inc.
- Common Ground Broadcasting, Inc.
- Golden Gate Broadcasting Company, Inc.
- Inland Radio, Inc.
- Inspiration Media, Inc.
- Inspiration Media of Texas, Inc.
- Kingdom Direct, Inc.
- New England Continental Media, Inc.
- New Inspiration Broadcasting Company, Inc.
- Oasis Radio, Inc.
- Oneplace, Ltd.
- Pennsylvania Media Associates, Inc.
- Radio 1210, Inc.
- Salem Media Corporation
- Salem Media Group, LLC
- Salem Media of California, Inc.
- Salem Media of Colorado, Inc.
- Salem Media of Hawaii, Inc.
- Salem Media of Illinois, LLC
- Salem Media of Kentucky, Inc.
- Salem Media of New York, LLC
- Salem Media of Ohio, Inc.
- WRFD (sale to Christian Voice pending)
- Salem Media of Oregon, Inc.
- Salem Media of Pennsylvania, Inc.
- Salem Media of Texas, Inc.
- Salem Media of Virginia, Inc.
- Salem Music Network, Inc.
- Salem Radio Network Incorporated
- Salem Radio Representatives, Inc.
- South Texas Broadcasting, Inc.
- SRN News Network, Inc.
- Vista Broadcasting, Inc.
[edit] Salem Radio Network
Salem Communications syndicates a number of programs in two separate streams: mostly politically conservative secular talk, and Christian talk. This programming is distributed, mainly to Salem-owned stations but also to non-Salem-owned stations, under the banner of the Salem Radio Network.
Some programs are fed live. Many stations carry delayed feeds. Some stations substitute other conservative talk programs from other syndicators. Hosts such as Laura Ingraham and Dennis Miller appear on Salem-owned stations.
The satellite feed for Salem's general market programming can be heard on the CRN Digital Talk Radio Networks, on CRN3.
[edit] Web Network
Salem Web Network has the goal of replicating Salem's leadership position in radio in the digital world. They began with the acquisition of OnePlace.com and SermonSearch.com.[neutrality disputed] At that time, they were receiving 78,000 page views, had a revenue of 3 million and a profit of -6.1 million. Today, Salem Web Network reaches more than 6 million unique users each month with over 60 million+ page views, has a revenue of 10 million and a profit of 2 million. According to Nielsen Net Ratings, Salem Web Network has more pages viewed than all other web sites combined in the Christian niche.[citation needed] Salem Web Network owns and manages over 60 websites including: Christianity.com, Crosswalk.com, OnePlace.com, SermonSearch.com, LightSource.com, ChristianJobs.com, ChurchStaffing.com, TheFish.com, Townhall.com, CrossDaily.com, and many more.[3]
[edit] Publishing
Salem's flagship publication, CCM Magazine [4], has been in the Christian music industry for more than 25 years. Salem no longer prints CCM Magazine. Other magazine publications including Homecoming [5] from Bill and Gloria Gaither, Youth Worker Journal [6], and Preaching [7].
Xulon Press is Salem's digital publisher of books targeting the Christian audience[4]. They use print-on-demand technologies that store books electronically and print them only as they are ordered. Xulon was founded by Christian author and publisher Tom Freling.
[edit] Political Activism
The founders of Salem Communications support various religious causes. Epperson was recently reported in Time magazine as one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America." In 2004 he co-chaired Americans of Faith, a religiously-based Republican electoral campaign. Both founders have served on the Council for National Policy. They gave $100,000 to the Bush presidential reelection campaign and $780,000 to the 2000 "California Defense of Marriage Act" (Proposition 22) ballot measure.[8]
[edit] References
- ^ "ChristianityToday.com, "Dollars and Sense: How Salem Communications makes its money", 1/26/07". http://www.ctlibrary.com/40590. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
- ^ From Google Maps information for "Salem Communications, Camarillo, CA". Accessed 14 December 2009.
- ^ [1], Salem Web Network
- ^ [2], Xulon About Page
[edit] Further reading
- Piore, Adam (2006-01-01). "Higher Frequency". Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/higher_frequency.html. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
[edit] External links
- Salem Communications
- Salem Radio Network
- List of Salem-owned news/talk stations
- Salem Radio Labs
- Salem Web Network
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