NewReleaseTuesday.com (NRT), a Christian music and entertainment site and part of the FrontGate Media family, has started 2011 with record traffic and growth. From welcoming the 40,000th member to the NRTeam, the largest crowdsourced interactive Christian music community online, to posting triple digit year to date growth, and more than doubling the audience of NRT Radio, there is momentum in every corner of NRT.
“It’s been an exciting few years for NewReleaseTuesday.com,” says founder Kevin McNeese. “But there’s a certain energy these past few months that I haven’t felt before. It feels like everything we’ve been working hard on for the past four years is truly starting to take hold. Our systems seem to be firing on all cylinders.”
The NRTeam welcomed its 40,000th member on March 3, 2011. The NRTeam, the online crowdsource community for NRT, allows Christian music fans to interact with each other continuously building the largest Christian music database online, all while earning points for free merchandise.
Site traffic continued to surge in the first two months of 2011, after a stellar 2010 year which saw 2.75 million visitors and 6.6 million page views. Jan/Feb 2011 site traffic increased 115% in visitors over 2010 to 700,000 visitors and pageviews increased 66% to 1.47 million.
Last month, NRT debuted a completely redesigned home page, the first of several planned redesigns for the site. New designs for category pages will follow. “When we built NRT four years ago,” says McNeese, “we had no idea that we’d have the amount of content that we currently have. We’re long overdue for a more robust, interactive offering of information.”
The editorial staff of NRT is also expanding, with the recent hiring of Marcus Hathcock to Senior Editor and the introduction of many new contributors. “It’s an honor to be part of NRT,” says Hathcock, “and we’re excited to continue to partner with extremely talented writers, photographers and designers who share a passion of excellence and Christian music. NRT has always had a unique and professional voice, and we’ll continue to expand that in the months ahead.” The NRT Staff will be traveling to Atlanta in April to cover the 42nd Annual GMA Dove Awards as well as having an extended presence at both Creation East and West festivals this summer.
NRT Radio (www.NRTRadio.com), NRT’s 24/7 online radio station, launched in September 2010. The unique radio format consists of over 9 hours of new music in all genres with no songs repeated. February 2011 saw over 3,500 unique listeners from 92 countries, which is over three times the audience the station had just a few months ago. With an average session length of over 64 minutes, it’s apparent that listeners love what they are hearing.
NRT’s Give Back Program completed a 5 month run of partnership with various non-profits including My Broken Palace, Hands and Feet Project, blood:water Mission, Compassion International and World Vision. NRT donated $.25 for every new member to the NRTeam, generating over $2,500 for these non-profits.
Scott A. Shuford, president of FrontGate Media believes that this is still the beginning. “NRT’s members and visitors are enjoying a unique experience that they continue to share with friends. NewReleaseTuesday.com has become one of the premiere sites in the Christian community for those seeking music, books and other entertainment. I expect we’ll see even more growth from NewReleaseTuesday.com.”
NewReleaseTuesday.com (http://www.NewReleaseTuesday.com) was launched in August of 2002 and offers the most complete and up-to-date listing of upcoming releases online, exclusive artist interviews, commentary from a variety of columnists, weekly New Christian Music PodCasts and the latest in Christian music and other entertainment news. It is also the home to the NRTeam, an online community that maintains one of the largest online databases of Christian artist profiles, album reviews and song lyrics. NewReleaseTuesday.com is part of the FrontGate Media group.
FrontGate Media (www.FrontGateMedia.com) is the largest culture-engaged media group & marketing service reaching the faith and family values audience which represents $4.6 billion worth of Christian products purchased by consumers annually according to a recent article in USA Today. The firm is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2011. The FrontGate Media group provides reach to more than 15 million email subscribers, 25 million monthly page views, and 600,000+ at annual events. The media group is #1 in reach to several consumer and leadership demographics in the faith and family values audience including entertainment fans, music fans, church musicians and worship leaders, youth leaders and youth group students, and political conservatives. The company plays a key role in the success of movie studios, non-profit organizations, publishers and authors, record labels and artists and more seeking “creative & emerging media” outlets.
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