For more than 40 years, Salem has successfully reached audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values. Ed Atsinger (Chief Executive Officer) and Stu Epperson (Chairman of the Board) began shaping their strategy of super-serving the Christian market as they combined their radio assets to create Salem Media Group. Beginning with stations in North Carolina and Cal
ifornia, Atsinger and Epperson furthered their business interests purchasing station properties in Boston, San Antonio, New York, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other key markets converting them to flourishing Christian talk stations. In the 1990’s, they expanded beyond Christian Teaching Talk, successfully rolling out formats featuring Contemporary Christian Music, News Talk, Spanish-language Christian and most recently, business programming. Atsinger and Epperson leveraged the success of the company’s growing major market presence launching Salem Radio Network (SRN) in 1993. syndicating talk, news and music programming to approximately 2,000 Christian-formatted and general market radio stations throughout the country. SRN distributes daily and weekly programming for more than 70 ministries and organizations making satellite distribution a reliable and affordable way to make our partner’s programs available to radio stations nationwide. In 1999, Salem increased it’s media reach with the purchase of CCM Magazine – an industry standard in the contemporary Christian music community. From that beginning, Salem Publishing now circulates additional Christian and conservative magazines such as Homecoming® The Magazine, YouthWorker Journal(TM), The Singing News, FaithTalk Magazine, Preaching and Townhall Magazine(TM). Salem delved further into the publishing industry in 2006 with the purchase of Xulon Press(TM) – a provider of self publishing services targeting the Christian audience. Salem Web Network (SWN), the online division of Salem Media Group, began in 1999 with a single website – OnePlace.com. Today, SWN consists of the most well-known brands in the faith marketplace such as Crosswalk.com, CrossCards.com, and GodTube.com. Now reaching more than 6 million users every month and serving over a million fans through more than 60 Facebook fan pages. Additionally, Salem purchased general-market, conservative news leader Townhall.com® in 2006 and conservative political blog HotAir.com in 2010, providing conservative commentary, news and blogging to an ever-expanding audience. In 2011, Salem launched its Church Products division with the acquisition of Worship House Media, an ecommerce retailer of videos and other multimedia to churches. Since our initial public offering in July 1999, Salem Media Group has grown from 46 to a total of 112 radio stations, with 67 stations in the nation’s top 25 top markets – and 30 in the top 10. Through relationships with our ministry and content partners, Salem is committed to bringing a positive and life-changing message that influences faith and impacts our culture. We welcome you’re interest in Salem and appreciate the loyalty of our audience, ministry partners and advertisers in helping us achieve our current success.
