In late October of 2004, it became known that XM Radio management had finally committed to launching a Southern Gospel music … which would begin airing on November 15, 2004. Not on the satellite service, but via the new OnLine Internet adjunct service the Company would be launching on that day.
However, there were no plans to hire a person to program the channel, as there was no real interest in even having the channel, but some vocal subscribers were demanding one … which they’d been doing from shortly after satellite broadcasting had begun three years earlier. This was an effort to quench this outcry.
Being the good Southern Baptist that I allegedly am, the Lord spoke to me, saying “Marlin, you’ve got to take charge here and do your best to make sure My music is presented in the best manner possible.”
I will readily admit … we weren’t very good in those early days, although I believe we were true to our Lord and Southern Gospel in all that we did. To begin with:
- I could not devote fulltime to the effort, as I was already handling the complete programming of two other channels … the 40’s Channel and Escape.
- Even though I had watched numerous Gaither Homecoming videos and listened to the Gospel Greats on occasion, I did not have a great knowledge of the Southern Gospel genre.
- We had very little in the way of Southern Gospel recordings in house.
- We had less than 30 days to build a library and construct a channel format.
Guided by the Holy Spirit, I was able to design a format that embodied the various aspects of the genre as would be desired by the lovers of this Lord-glorifying music and their varied tastes. This included quickly discovering and connecting with Singing News magazine to gain an overview of the artists and industry and get help from the likes of Jim Stover at Crossroads and three or four others who each sent us a box of CD’s. Plus, it happened that the Gaither Homecoming tour was coming to northern Virginia just across the Potomac River from our headquarters – it was there that we met the Isaacs, who recorded that station jingle that was heard on enLighten for years … done totally impromptu.
While I was never told, the channel obviously commanded sufficient listening that exactly one year later, when XM music channels were added to DirecTV, enLighten was included … and six months later, on Easter Sunday night of 2006, Southern Gospel made its national debut on satellite radio!
Three months later, when the next report of subscriber listenership by channel was released, the high ranking among all channels by enLighten proved that this was a style of music that had popularity that reached far beyond a “few folks in the South.” So much so that in early 2007, at an all-employee gathering, a senior company executive called enLighten “the XM Radio programming success story of 2006!”
As that old proverb says … “great oaks from little acorns grow!” I believe that’s very appropriate when applied to enLighten … this November 15th celebrating its 10th Anniversary of bringing Southern Gospel music to all of North America . . . in spite of a number of challenges along the way.
I rejoice that the Lord allowed me to be part of that journey.
Marlin
