Words of Life is joining Salem Media's LifeAudio Network

Hey, and welcome back to Words of Life. We have a very exciting announcement to share with you all.

Beginning this month, Words of Life will be partnering with Salem Media to join their network of podcasts on Life Audio. So to learn more about what our listeners can expect and to learn about Salem Media's mission and purpose, we're now joined by Kathleen Bensey from Salem Media and Tommy Lynch from Life Audio. Welcome back, everybody. We are so glad that you've joined us, and I am excited to welcome to the show our friends at Salem Media Group, Kathleen and Tommy. Hello. Great to meet you.

Hey, Bernard. Glad to be with you. Man, we're glad that you're here, and this is a new experience for all of us. We want to make sure our listeners know who you are and what the new sounds are that they're hearing.

So let's get right to it. Tell me a little bit about Salem Media Group and Life Audio. Yeah, I'll start off with Salem Media Group. So Salem is a market leader in Christian and conservative media. We have radio stations across the country. We own a hundred radio stations, but have 3,200 affiliates throughout our networks. So two formats that we focus on are Christian and conservative talk, and we really focus on the largest markets in the country, but also websites and digital platforms and syndicated talk show hosts. So everything Christian and conservative. Wow. That sounds like a lot.

A hundred radio stations. Tommy, tell us about yourself. Now, how do you guys divide and conquer the responsibilities between the two of you?

Yeah, absolutely, Bernie. So Life Audio is our faith-based, family-friendly Christian podcasting network at Salem Media Group, and we've been around about four years, four and a half years, and are super excited to be partnering with The Salvation Army and their podcast, so this is really cool. Basically, we love to partner with content that sort of fits the medium that Kathleen talked about, and Life Audio does that.

You're going to find Bible studies, shows about marriage and parenting and homeschooling and devotions and things like that. That is awesome. We are kindred spirits, for sure, and I'm glad that you are partnering with us.

It's amazing. Give me a little history. How did this all start for you? Where does Salem Media Group bubble up in our history?

Yeah, I'll start again, Tommy, just with Salem, and then you can talk more about Life Audio. But with Salem, it's been around for about 35 years, and our two founders, they went into major markets like Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. They bought big FM sticks.

That's how they started. Usually, they were hard rock and roll stations, and they turned them into Christian stations. So the goal was to put the gospel out in the airwaves in major markets all across the country, and that's how we got started.

That is awesome. Where does the history intersect with Life Audio, Tommy? I mentioned about four and a half years ago, we have a large staff of editors at Salem Web Network, which is all our digital websites, websites like crosswalk.com, biblestudytools.com, I believe, Christianity.com, and so those relationships our editors had with content creators was kind of where we started Life Audio. We reached out to these content creators and said, hey, you've been contributing content to us for a number of years. We want to start a podcast network.

We would love it if you would come alongside of us with your content and create a podcast of what you're doing, and we'll help produce it for you. So that's where we got our first 26 shows, Bernie, and then after doing that, we began to reach out and partner with folks like The Salvation Army who had podcasts who were doing all the production on their side and just have them come on as partners and help us grow in creating a platform that we can have this very rich, affirming content that you can come and listen to and hopefully grow in their faith. That is a beautiful thing, and I'm so glad for the vision and really the success that you all have seen in your time and in your ministry. The Salvation Army, of course, has been around since 1865, and I think we're in 134 countries around the world right now, and so we are kindred spirits in a very real way because a listener might want to know why are we aligned with Salem Media Group and Life Audio?

And as we were talking just before the show, it's so simple. You know, we want to make sure that we're aligned to preach the gospel. We want to meet human need in Jesus' name.

Those types of things just make me get out of bed in the morning with a pep in my step. For you guys, what is it about The Salvation Army that you appreciate? Why are we kindred spirits, in a sense? You know, the mission at Salem is really to spread the gospel, and that's what I think of when I think of The Salvation Army.

My own father pulled off the side of the road to accept Jesus in his car when he heard an altar call on the radio through one of the teaching programs. So we're just here to help the hurting and save the lost. Amen. With your ability to transmit through all these different networks that you have available to us, the gospel will get even further. It'll spread even wider, and that's a beautiful thing.

If even one comes into a right relationship with Jesus because of this, then it will have been worthwhile. We're grateful for that. I was going to give a little bit of a background. We've had a relationship with Salem Media now most recently for a few years as we've been running ad campaigns through Life Audio through Salem. So Kathleen and I have been in contact now for a couple of years, and we knew we were at a place where we were looking for, where does this show go next? And we knew we needed to be a part of a larger network to really get in front of even more listeners. And Kathleen and I actually met at this past year's NRB, which is the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, and we just kind of brainstormed, and we said, you know, what's next?

What else could we be doing with Salem? And that led us to a meeting with Tommy from Life Audio, and we met the rest of the team, and it seemed like a great move to be able to partner with a larger network of Christian shows, and so here we are. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing when the body of Christ works together to get His mission done.

We're so grateful for you two and the companies that you represent helping us take the gospel even further. So let me ask you this question. You know, the listeners might want to know, will anything change? Do the shows remain the same that they know and love?

And the answer, Tommy, is? Absolutely. Of course.

Yes, of course. So honestly, they're really not going to know that you all have become part of our network based on their listening experience, like where they go to subscribe, what platform they listen off of. That's going to all stay the same.

None of that will change. It will be seamless for them. You know, some of the things they will notice is that there'll be some intros that these shows are a part of Life Audio now, which is sort of standard what we do for all of our partners that come on. They'll also begin to hear some advertisements, which is going to be probably not totally new for them because you guys have done some internal promotions before. So they've been somewhat familiar with that. But that's kind of one of the benefits of being a part of Life Audio is that we're going to help contribute toward financially through the advertising towards the mission that we are both involved in.

And I think some people may not realize that there are production costs associated with any type of work, of course. And so whatever we can do to help offset those costs is important. And it keeps the message of the gospel moving forward.

So we're grateful for that. I think the other cool thing is they're going to hear ads from kindred spirits. I say that word all too often, that phrase, you know, but the fact that they'll be made aware of Bible study.com and Christianity.com or the things that you've already mentioned is exciting to me because I think wherever people can find an alternative to something that's not as promising as the gospel, it's good.

The gospel is what we want people to hear. I am excited because we have our producer, the rock star himself that is Chris Benjamin. He's very shy, but I love him because he has these great ideas and he brings it to the table opportunities for us, like the relationship between the Salem media group and the Salvation Army. And, you know, Chris, I just want to say thank you in front of all of our listeners. I'm sure that the other Chris will edit all of this out, but what I'd love to know is the direction where you want me to take the rest of this opportunity.

Did we miss anything that we should cover? You know, for me, my greatest prayer in this partnership is just, I've had a sense for quite a while that, you know, it's time to find this next step and being a partner with Life Audio not only puts us in a network with other shows, but also we now have more people that can just kind of speak into what we're doing to make sure that we are offering the best content possible and people are really getting the most out of it. We're very appreciative for people who spend 15 minutes of their day, you know, once a week, I know how busy we are to just, you know, hear us share these messages of hope. And so getting feedback from their team so that we know that we're doing the best we can is vital as well.

Amen. I think the best thing that I can say to our listeners, if you are excited about the opportunity for faith-based, family-friendly, gospel-centric conversations about what the Lord is doing in and amongst us, then you are in the right place and we hope that you will hit the subscribe button and get those notifications so that you can join us weekly as we distribute this, monthly as we distribute some of our other podcasts. There's so much going on and we want to say again, thank you and welcome to the Salem Media Group and Life Audio. You guys are going to make us even better and we thank the Lord for you. Where can they find out more about where to listen?

Yeah, so you can go to lifeaudio.com, that's lifeaudio.com, or you can go and search for the shows on whatever your favorite listening platform is and you'll find us. We're so grateful. Kathleen, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you, Bernie. It was a great opportunity. Great to be with you. And thanks so much for this opportunity. It's great to be with you and to chat with you about this. We're excited to be partnering with Salvation Army on the podcast platform. Amen.

God bless you both. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for The Salvation Army's Words of Life.