Earlier this month, Charisma Media announced that is has combined its magazines, books, the MEV Bible, and digital products with the Charisma Podcast Network unit. The aim of the restructuring, CEO and founder Stephen Strang said, was to "streamline" operations for the company which began as Charisma magazine and grew into a book publisher, and digital and broadcast company under the Charisma Media umbrella.
Strang says the new structure emphasizes “going back to our roots of being one media company which sells books to our niche religious audience of Pentecostals and Charismatics and other conservative Christians." He said while Charisma will continue to sell to the trade, it will "focus on selling our books on topics mainly interesting to our core audience through our own media, both print and digital.”
The company, which has published more than 2,000 books and the Modern English Version of the Bible, will continue with its current imprints (Charisma House, Siloam, and Frontline) releasing 50 titles in 2021, Strang said. There are plans to add digital products as “e-courses” accompanying some books and to add new video and audio channels for distributing content.
Strang told PW the restructuring will give the company new channels "to promote our books better to the religious book readers we've served since the mid-80s, but reaching them in multiple ways in this new digital era. Structurally it won't be two ‘groups’ trying to work together, but one media company with a single vision and many ways to accomplish it.”
As part of the reorganization, Steve Greene moves from the company’s multi-media group and is now executive v-p of media and markets. He’ll now also oversee the book publishing brands. Ken Peckett adds to his role as the company controller to oversee content development, printing, IT, and more as executive v-p of operations.
