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Salem Communications has purchased the Singing News magazine. The company publishes CCM, Homecoming, Youthworker, and Crosswalk magazines currently. They also own the websites crosswalk.com and oneplace.com.

Salem Communications is a name that may be familiar to Southern Gospel fans, since they own the Solid Gospel network. What you may not know is they also own 103 radio stations and several magazines. The company also syndicates talk and music shows to more than 1900 radio stations.

What will this mean for readers of the Singing News? At this point in time, it's difficult to say how much will change. If reports from the past about circulation are accurate, Singing News already moves more than twice as many copies per month than the other magazines in Salem's fold. 200,000 copies vs 90,000 copies of Homecoming and 70,000 copies of CCM per month.

That being the case, I'm not completely sure you can look at those magazines for an indication of where the Singing News may go in terms of content. At the very least, I would expect them to continue focusing on traditional Southern Gospel music. Maybe the color content, page layout and number of feature articles will be changed, though. I would expect that to happen. Flipping through a CCM or Homecoming magazine is generally a more colorful experience. It's also a thinner experience. It will be interesting to see what, if any, trade-offs are made.

One change was announced in the press release...a move to web-based reporting of airplay. Whether this will affect the printed chart in the magazine or simply be a more efficient way for radio stations to turn in their airplay information remains to be seen. One can only hope it will make the printed charts more up to date. Nick Bruno and others have been campaigning for a shorter chart (Top 20 or Top 40) for some time. I think the biggest problem with the chart is that it's three months out of date by the time you read it. Salem appears to be poised to make improvements in this area.

I'm not generally a fan of monopolies, but I opined some time ago that the biggest thing that could help Southern Gospel radio would be for a national network to buy up as many stations as possible and force them to play music that meets standards based on MUSICAL QUALITY. I don't think they should dictate what songs are played. That would be too controlling, but requiring all songs to be pre-approved first would be a great step up in this genre compared to the "play anything that walks in the door" attitude you find at many Southern Gospel radio stations. It would be preferable, in my opinion, to even do away with unprofessional local DJs at many stations until they can sell enough ads that in turn allows them to hire professionals to do the job.

Salem may end up being the company who ultimately pulls that off and saves Southern Gospel radio from its current self-destructive path. Having the genre's leading magazine in your arsenal certainly can't hurt anything.

In addition to adding more artists, Tom over at www.sgmupdate.com keeps adding handy little features to his site. The latest thing is a Google map.

To see the map, you check off your favorite artists or simply hit "Select All." Then you type in your zip code, how far you're willing to travel, and hit the "Calculate" button. In a few seconds, the map will pop up along with a list of every group that's scheduled to come to your area for the next three months or so.

Right now the map doesn't show the precise location of each concert...just the center of the zip code where the group will be appearing. It's still pretty neat to get a general visual indication of how close you are to upcoming events, though. If you click on the red pointers on the map, you'll see the name of the group and the date they'll be there. (Of course, if two groups are going to be in the same zip code, you'll only be able to see one of them.)

Tracks include:
"Misty" (Cledus T. Judd, Vince Gill, Sonya Isaacs) (You have to hope and pray that Judd's vocals are WAY in the background on this one.)

The recording will be used to raise funds for the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation.