The Fish has been swallowed by Educational Media Foundation. Now, Salem Media Group has transferred ownership of a pair of Christian-themed music networks to Christian FM Media Group, a content provider now offering a trio of non-secular formats to radio stations across the U.S.
This means the “Today’s Christian Music” and “Today’s Worship Music” networks as of February 1 are offerings from an entity led by President Jon Hamilton and VP Paul Tipton. Jayme Summers, current Program Director and Operations Manager for the Salem Music Networks, has joined Christian FM in a similar capacity.
The transaction is directly tied to the divestment of Salem Media Group’s radio stations offering Christian Contemporary Music and/or Worship Music to Educational Media Foundation. That deal, valued at $80 million, ended 2024 on a high note, making it easily one of the biggest dollar-value deals in recent memory for the radio industry.
Christian FM Media Group calls the transfer of the assets from Salem “seamless,” with client stations and their listeners seeing no material difference in program supply services.
“Today’s Christian Music” and “Today’s Worship Music” will continue to operate as unique networks. Additionally, Christian FM’s “SmartRadio Suite” affiliates will continue to operate independently as well, and all market exclusivity agreements will remain.
Salem President of Broadcast Media Allen Power commented, “Our recent divestitures led to understandable uncertainty for our Music Network affiliates. Thanks to this partnership with Christian FM, we have been able to quickly provide those affiliates with a fairly seamless opportunity to maintain excellent CCM/Worship Music programming on their stations. The team at Christian FM and SmartRadio Suite has collaborated wonderfully to create a new programming home for our affiliates.”
Hamilton said, “We are delighted to be able to carry the important legacy of the Salem Music Network into the future. Many of the wonderful talent associated with Salem’s network and local CCM stations will be working with us and will continue to encourage listeners on affiliated stations across America.” Hamilton added, “In the months ahead, we will be making some exciting new delivery technology available to these stations, allowing even greater music flexibility and more personality choices. Christian FM has long been known for creating unique custom content to stations and we intend to expand this capability to the TCM and TWM affiliates as well.”
