Christian30: Wikis

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Christian30 is a young adult American website devoted to the Christian music industry, headquartered in Hollywood and London. Originally devoted to Christian music countdowns, especially popular music, Christian30 has since opted to expand into other areas including Christian books and film. It has become an outlet for a variety of different radio jocks aimed at adolescents and young adults.

Christian30's combination of youthful radio jockeys, irrevent commentary, promotion of special pop concerts, and news and documentaries about bands and performers have established the network's popularity with youthful viewers, and it became a leading promoter of new Christian pop music and pop musicians. Christian30 is often considered to be the driving force in American Christian pop culture.

Christian30 maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in its various categories on a weekly basis. It's most famous chart, the "Christian Hot 30", ranks the top 30 songs regardless of genre and is frequently used as the standard measure for ranking songs in the United States.

History

Christian30 was founded by DMG Radio Australia (known for the popular Nova radio station) in early 2006. It was an initiative to combat the ever-popular radio show and internet combination of Austereo's popular radio jock "Lowie". Since Austereo was often described left-wing, DMG saw it's opportunity by launching a right-wing online venture which captured the eye of the Christian audience.

Corporate Information

VJs

Every year or so, when new video jockeys are needed, Christian30 will run a "VJ Search" to pick one new VJ to join the team of VJs. They will usually visit cities across America and pick people who appear to show potential through their audition. In earlier years, the VJ Search was usually a two-part show, but soon evolved into its own reality series.

Despite the popularity of the VJ Search, most VJs are still hired by Christian30 directly, without being Search contestants.

Branding

The first logo for Christian30 when it first began was Christian30 with a rainbow filter through the word. The logo change was to portray Christian30 as more modern and youthful station.

Former relationship with MTV and MuchMusic

Christian30 was launched in part to capitalize on the success of MTV and MuchMusic, an American and Canadian cable music channel that had premiered a few years earlier. Christian30 saw an opportunity to pursue the growing Christian music market, which was said by a Sony BMG marketing manager to be the fastest growing genre in music.

Diversification

The advent of Internet podcasting brought a greater diversity including the well known Internet portal Christian30.com, which initially focussed on providing Christian pop charts.

The website channel soon expanded on its broadcasts (including music videos), as well as an abundant of unique content.

International Diversification

Christian30 Networks has launched numerous native-language Christian30-branded music channels to countries worldwide.

These channels include (but are not limited to) Christian30 Canada; Christian30 Ireland; Christian30 Germany; Christian30 Europe; Christian30 Italy; Christian30 Denmark; Christian30 China; Christian30 Netherlands; Christian30 Australia; Christian30 Latin America; Christian30 Brazil; Christian30 New Zealand and ; Christian30 Russia.

Criticism

Commercialism

Because of its visibilty as a promotional tool for the Christian recording industry, Christian30 has been criticized as overly commercial and accused of denigrating the importance of music in the music industry (replacing it with purely visual aesthetic); putting equally popular but less image-centric or single-based acts at a distinct disadvantage.

Moral influence

There have also been some critics who have said that Christian30 degrades bad behavior (e.g. premarital sex, violence, and recreational drug use) to the youth of America by slamming the behaviors of certain celebrities who are a bad role model, predominantly non-Christian celebrities, such as Robbie Williams and Paris Hilton.