BeliefNet’s Brokaw welcomes CMDish.com

Well, word is out on the street.  CMDish.com has been live for only a matter of days and they’re already knocking us across the street so to speak!

Joanne Brokaw of BeliefNet.com dedicated her column yesterday to our efforts here at CMDish.com — and she’s not happy.  “Christian music may have sunk to a new low with the launch of a new TMZ-ish website…” said Brokaw via her “Gospel Soundcheck” column, entitled, “Introducing the Christian version of TMZ.com, CMDish.com.“

Ms. Brokaw’s comparison of us to TMZ.com isn’t an unfair comparison, as it’s one that we ourselves have thrown around from time to time.  In fact, we used that very same correlation in an impromptu email that was distributed to a few contacts of ours in Nashville, home of the Christian music industry.

Someone forwarded the email to Ms. Brokaw and off to “press” she went, misinterpreting and misrepresenting our intentions are here at CMDish.com.

CMDish.com exists to entertain, inform, and help foster a deeper connection between our reading audience and artists in the Christian music community.

In her diatribe, Brokaw acknowledging that, “the Christian music industry has long been guilty of coat tailing on mainstream trends with a Christian version of, well, everything. But do we need a Christian TMZ?”

Ironically, the website that hosts Ms. Brokaw’s blog is owned by News Corporation (Source:  About BeliefNet), the parent company of FOX Broadcasting Company.  Yes, the same organization that brings you fine television programming such as Family Guy, Glee, and ironically, even TMZ TV.

Although we believe Ms. Brokaw is taking our email out of context, we believe the answer to her initial question on whether or not the Christian community needs a Christian TMZ is an astounding yes!

Mainstream artists have a virtually endless platform, connecting with people via movies, television, radio, magazines, billboards — the list goes on and on.  Christian artists on the other hand lack such exposure and as a result, fans of Christian music are missing out on that relationship with their favorite artists that could be.

Print publications like ChristianMusicPlanet and CCM Magazine are no more and at this point and  the only major platform left for Christian artists at this point is Christian radio.  Yet sadly, the number of local Christian music radio stations seems to be shrinking year after year.

CMTarget, the company that owns this website, is set to change all of that by introducing web 2.0 concepts to the Christian music industry that are going to help create a footprint on the Internet that’s just as large if not larger than our industry’s mainstream counterpart.  This website, CMDish.com, is just one piece of this puzzle.