Word is the word in Christian niche

Wholesaler helps studios access religious stores

Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 3/25/2005

MARCH 25 | Word Distribution is helping DVD suppliers reach the 3,500-store membership of the Christian Booksellers Assn.

Earlier this year Word inked a multi-year pact to distribute 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment content to CBA outlets, covering titles including the overtly religious Love's Enduring Promise to the decidedly mainstream Fat Albert.

Fox's breakthrough Christian-themed title, The Passion of the Christ, was distributed to CBA through Zondervan, a publishing unit under Fox sister company Harper Collins. But since then, under its new deal terms with Fox, further CBA-destined titles will go through Word.

"If Mel decided to do Passion 2, we would have the DVD," quipped Jim Nehs, Word's VP sales for the CBA division.

Word also recently pacted to handle Lions Gate Home Entertainment's expected June DVD release of Tyler Perry's blockbuster Diary of a Mad Black Woman. A number of Perry catalog titles also will run through Word that month.

Word charges studios a per-title distribution fee amounting to an unspecified percentage of sales revenue.

Both Fox and Lions Gate have worked with Word before. In 2003, Word distributed Hangman's Curse for Fox and Joshua for Lions Gate, among other titles holding Christian appeal.

"It is an unusual market," Word's VP sales for CBA division Jim Nehs said. "Their whole line of product is supposed to glorify and edify God. What we sell to them must line up with their mission statement."

Word is currently offering merchandising kits to CBA members to help create family-entertainment DVD areas in stores.

Typically, Word ships up to 100,000 copies of prominent religious titles such as Fox's Loves Enduring Promise or Love Comes Softly--based on Janette Oke's hit Christian book series-- to CBA stores. More secular titles, such as Lions Gate's The Five People You Meet In Heaven or Fox's Fat Albert, are shipped in quantities of 10,000-20,000 copies.

"Fat Albert has a great message behind it--it's OK to like yourself," Nehs said. "[And] there's not any swearing every other word."

CBA has also stocked Fox's Strawberry Shortcake titles and Garfield.

"The idea of having family entertainment, where mom and dad can walk up to a section and know they can watch something without blushing, we want to bring that to CBA," Nehs said.

A subsidiary to the Warner Music Group, Word is grateful for these expanding relationships with major DVD suppliers. For over 50 years, its main thrust has been album distribution, a business that's slumped of late.

"CDs won't always be there, and we want to be hungry for other opportunities," Nehs said.

Studios seem grateful for the assistance in navigating Christian retailer tastes. With Word collaborating, Lions Gate is planning its largest exhibition splash yet at CBA's annual retail convention in July.

"There are certain needs that the CBA market has," said Tim Fournier, executive VP marketing at Lions Gate. "[Word is] a solid distribution partner for that channel."

Fournier added that "not all the films we take into that market will be Biblical, but certainly there will be the right titles, like Five People You Meet in Heaven, that meet that value orientation for the market to be successful."

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