Christian music industry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Christian music industry is a small part of the larger music industry, that focuses on traditional gospel music, southern gospel music, and Contemporary Christian music.
The majority of artists working and performing within the Christian music industry are isolated from the mainstream public, to Christian radio, magazines and record stores.
Some artists however are able to "cross over" to achieve success both within the Christian music industry and the larger, "mainstream" music industry. Crossing over has become a little easier in recent years as, through ownership changes, the largest Christian record labels have become subsidiaries of the "mainstream" labels (who are themselves owned by huge media conglomerates like Viacom and Time Warner), promoting a product to a growing market. Christian music sales now exceed those for classical, jazz, and New Age music combined.[1]
The Christian music industry's roots are found in the late 1960s and early 1970s Jesus Movement and its Jesus Music artists.
The Christian music industry is structured similarly to the music industry as a whole. It is made up of:
- songwriters and composers
- publishers
- performance rights organisations such as BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, and CCLI (see below)
- print music companies who create printed music and accompaniment recordings of contemporary Christian music, praise songs, worship music and traditional hymns
- singers
- musicians
- Musicians' Unions
- record producers
- record labels
- record distributors
- band managers
- concert promoters
- bookers
- roadies
The Christian music industry also has its own blanket performance rights organisation specifically designed for royalty payments related to the reproduction of Christian songs in church worship services: Christian Copyright Licensing International or CCLI [2]. However not all artists or publishers subscribe to CCLI.
Christian music industry organizations:
- Gospel Music Association
- Christian Music Trade Association
