Word Entertainment Grows to Offer a Lot More Than Music

Since 1951, Word has been a staple in the Christian music industry. In the beginning, Word Records featured spoken word recordings. However, it wasn't long before the label branched out into gospel music by recording George Beverly Shea and the Baylor Religious Hour Choir. Once Marvin Norcross joined the Word family, the label branched out even further, becoming a publishing house as well as a record label. In 1964, Norcross took the next step in its growth by establishing the Canaan Records label to feature Southern Gospel music. The next step in the evolution of Word came in in 1972 when Billy Ray Hearn conceived and headed up Myrrh Records for Word.

A sale in 1992 to Thomas Nelson, Inc. saw a split of the record label and book publishing arms with the label to Gaylord Entertainment. Ten years later, AOL/Time Warner bought the company and consolidated Myrrh Records, Squint Entertainment and Everland Entertainment into the Word Label Group. In 2004, the Warner Music Group bought the entire Time Warner music group, including Word, for $2.6 billion. That sale set up the structure of the group to include the Word Label Group, Word Publishing, and Word Distribution. At the time, the Word Label Group included Word Records, Fervent Records, Myrrh Records, and Canaan Records. Word Publishing had nearly 50 Christian songwriters under contract and administered a catalog of more than 40,000 copyrighted songs. Word Music was the industry's top source for church hymnals, choral music, and associated instrumental music and accompaniment tracks. Word Distribution provided sales, marketing and distribution services for the Word family of labels as well as several other labels.

Fast forward to 2014 and Word is even bigger.

Word Records (which includes Fervent Records and Myrrh Records) represents close to 20 artists: About A Mile, Big Daddy Weave, Chris August, Dara Maclean, Everfound, for KING & COUNTRY, Francesca Battistelli, Group 1 Crew, Jason Castro, Love & The Outcome, Meredith Andrews, NEEDTOBREATHE, Patrick Ryan Clark, Point of Grace, Sidewalk Prophets, Skillet, Switchfoot, VERIDIA, and We As Human.

Word Music provides printed music and accompaniment trax to churches and consumers for use in personal and corporate worship, missions, education and beyond.

Word Distribution provides sales, marketing and distribution services for several leading labels, including Word Records, Curb Records, Fervent Records, Myrrh Records, Atlantic Records, Metro One Music, Big Idea Productions, Warner Home Video, Paramount Pictures and Image Entertainment.

Word Publishing has 10 artist writers and 9 staff writers on board.

Word Entertainment also offers merchandising, booking, marketing services, live events and strategic partnerships divisions in-house.

In case all of that wasn't enough, last week, Word Entertainment announced that it has partnered with international feature film production and distribution company Curb Entertainment, to distribute Word Entertainment’s faith-based films outside of the US. The first batch of films will include The Perfect Summer, My Name Is Paul, The Trail (Let God), Hope for Hurting Hearts, Mother India, Season of a Lifetime, Veil of Tears, and more, which will be showcased at the 2014 CANNES Film Market in Cannes, France.

In a press release, Rod Riley, President & CEO, Word Entertainment, talked about the partnership, saying, "There is an enormous and growing market for films that provide wholesome family entertainment, and Word Entertainment proudly offers thought-provoking films that tell stories of faith, hope, love, and redemption. I am thrilled that we are partnering with Carole Curb and Curb Entertainment to expand our reach and bring these great works to audiences around the world."

Carole Curb, President, Curb Entertainment, added, "We are proud to build upon a very successful relationship between Word and Curb by having the opportunity to work directly on the exciting films that Rod Riley and his team have assembled. Our company has had a 30-year history of film distribution, and we are excited to join with Word in the sales and marketing of its films."

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Big Daddy Weave, Chris August, Dara Maclean