Salem Media Group, Inc. (formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American radio broadcaster, internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher based in Irving, Texas, targeting audiences interested in Christian values and what it describes as "family-themed content and conservative values".[2]
Salem Media Group owns 117 radio stations in 38 markets, including 60 stations in the top 25 markets and 29 in the top 10, making it tied with Audacy for the fifth-largest radio broadcaster.[2]
In addition to its radio properties, the company owns:
The company was founded by brothers-in-law Stuart Epperson and Edward G. Atsinger III and is a for-profit corporation. This allows it to accept commercial advertising.
In 1974, Atsinger (chief executive officer) and Epperson (chairman of the board) combined their radio assets to create Salem Communications. Beginning with stations in North Carolina and California, Atsinger and Epperson purchased station properties in Boston, San Antonio, New York City, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other markets, converting them to Christian talk stations. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they expanded formats to include contemporary Christian music (with most stations under this format branded as "The Fish"),[3] news talk (branded as "The Answer"), Spanish-language Christian content, and business programming.[4]
Many of Salem's stations are licensed to subsidiaries, organized by geographical area and media cluster as the company has acquired new stations and their previous licensees.
Salem Communications Corp acquired Twitter curation site, Twitchy.com. In January 2014, the Company announced the acquisition of the assets of Eagle Publishing, including Regnery Publishing, Human Events, and RedState, and sister companies Eagle Financial Publications and Eagle Wellness.[5]
On February 23, 2015, Salem Communications changed its name to Salem Media Group.[6][7]
In 2015, Salem Media Group expanded their digital platform with acquisitions of several businesses and assets, including DividendYieldHunter.com,[8] Stockinvestor.com;[9] DividendInvestor.com,[10] a Spanish Bible mobile app, along with its related website and Facebook properties; the DailyBible mobile app; the Daily Bible Devotion mobile app; and also, Bryan Perry's Newsletters.
In 2016, Salem Media Group continued to expand by acquiring the websites ChristianConcertAlerts.com, Historyonthenet.com and Authentichistory.com; as well as Mike Turner's line of investment products, including TurnerTrends.com;[11] the Retirement Watch newsletter and website, Retirementwatch.com;[12] and the King James Bible mobile application. Salem Media Group also acquired Mill City Press from Hillcrest Publishing Group, Inc.
In July 2017, Salem Media Group merged DividendYieldHunter.com and transferred all content into DividendInvestor.com.[13]
In March 2019, political writer Raheem Kassam and lawyer Will Chamberlain purchased Human Events from Salem Media Group for $300,000.[14]
In early 2021, the company moved most operations from the former main operations city of Camarillo, California to Irving, Texas, the same location of their long-owned radio station KLTY.
On November 8, 2023, Salem exited the Upstate market after it sold WGTK in Greenville, North Carolina and the Earth FM stations to Educational Media Foundation, resulting in WGTK switching to the K-Love network and WRTH and WLTE switching to Air1 several days before.
Stations are arranged in order by state and city of license.
Salem Radio Network is a satellite radio network serving general market News/Talk stations and Christian-formatted stations through affiliate partnerships serving more than 2,700 radio stations. The five major divisions are SRN Talk, SRN News, Salem Music Network, Salem Media Reps and Vista Media Reps and SRN Satellite Services.
The satellite feed for Salem's general market programming can be heard on the CRN Digital Talk Radio Networks, on CRN3.[17]
Salem's flagship publication, CCM Magazine, was in the Christian music industry for more than 25 years. Salem no longer prints CCM Magazine, but it still exists in an online-only format. Other magazine publications include Singing News Magazine, which discusses happenings involving the Southern gospel community.[18]
Under the umbrella of Salem Author Service are Xulon Press, Mill City Press, and the websites Bookprinting.com, Bookediting.com, Publishgreen.com, and Libertyhill.com.
Xulon Press is a self-publishing digital publisher of books targeting a Christian audience.[19] 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 Freiling and was acquired by Salem in 2006.[20]
Salem owns a collection of Spanish language sites that provide a variety of Christian and family-friendly resources online. A few of those sites are CristoTarjetas.com; ElsitioCristiano.com; BibliaVida.com and LuzMundial.com.[citation needed]
The founders of Salem Communications support various religious causes, and are noted for their role in spreading politically conservative opinion to areas dependent on radio for current events information. In 2005, Epperson was reported in Time magazine as one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America".[21] In 2004 he co-chaired "Americans of Faith", a religiously based Republican electoral campaign. Both founders have served on the Council for National Policy, a group of conservative influencers, intellectuals, donors, and former elected officials known to feature right-wing extremists as members, and Epperson has served as president of the Council.[22][23][24][25] 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.[26]
In October 2022, Salem, along with Dinesh D'Souza and True The Vote, was sued by Mark Andrews for defamation in Dinesh D'Souza's film, 2000 Mules, for which Salem was the distributor as well as the publisher of a book of the same name. In the film, D'Souza, without any evidence, falsely accused Andrews of ballot stuffing. In May 2024, Salem pulled the film and book from distribution and apologized to Andrews, claiming they had relied on representations made by D'Souza and True The Vote, and had never intended to harm Andrews. The suit is ongoing.[27]
