Press Release – Ascension Radio Hours begin this week!
Catholicism’s Most Popular Podcasts Now Coming to Catholic Radio
New partnership between Ascension and St. Gabriel Radio brings Father Mike Schmitz, Jeff Cavins, Dr. Edward Sri, and Father Josh Johnson to the airwaves of Columbus.
[West Chester, PA and Columbus, OH, May 18, 2020 – ] To evangelize effectively in a digital world, you need to be where people are—on their devices, in their cars, and in the social media sphere. Two acclaimed Catholic media entities have teamed up to make “great content and great delivery” a reality for Catholics living in the Columbus metro area.
Ascension (formerly known as Ascension Press) and St. Gabriel Radio today announced a new initiative to bring Ascension’s acclaimed podcasts such as The Father Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast and The Jeff Cavins Show to a radio audience for the first time.
“Often in the Catholic world, organizations work in individual silos in their mission of evangelization,” explains Matthew Pinto, Ascension’s founder and president. “This partnership with St. Gabriel’s is part of a coordinated effort to share the beauty of the gospel with the Catholic community across all forms of media. We believe the ultimate beneficiaries of this collaboration will be Catholics throughout the Columbus region, who will experience rich new content previously only available in podcast form.”
According to Nielsen, radio continues to be “America’s top-reach medium,” with 92% of adults over 18 tuning in each week. This new partnership between Ascension and St. Gabriel Radio will make the faith-strengthening messages crafted by Ascension’s top evangelists available to a much wider audience in the Columbus metro area.
While podcasts have been steadily growing in popularity, Americans are still nearly three times more likely to listen to the radio as compared to podcasts overall, and twelve times more likely to listen to the radio than to play a podcast while driving. St. Gabriel Radio has slotted “Ascension Presents” programming for the popular 4:00–6:00 PM (Eastern) evening commute. The two-hour programming kicks off today, and will be available daily, Monday through Friday. The lineup will consist of content from Ascension presenters Father Mike Schmitz, Jeff Cavins, Dr. Edward Sri, and Father Josh Johnson.
“St. Gabriel Radio, like Ascension, seeks to keep things fresh,” comments Bill Messerly, executive director of St. Gabriel Radio, an independent affiliate radio station in the international EWTN Radio Network. “With the advent of podcasts, we have been seeking to see how we could bring this great content to our Catholic radio listeners. What better way to do this than to collaborate with the leader in faithful Catholic podcasts—Ascension.”
Ascension’s family of podcasts enjoy large followings and top rankings in Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The Father Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast is the #1 ranking Catholic podcast in both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and Ascension produces 6 of the top 30 Catholic podcasts on the Apple Podcasts platform. Collectively, the shows selected for the St. Gabriel collaboration have been downloaded nearly 19 million times by listeners from more than 180 countries. This new venture will take the best in Catholic audio content and pair it with the unparalleled audience reach of radio.
“Although radio is often overlooked as a means to evangelize, Catholic radio is very effective. Over the last decade [my team] has heard hundreds of first-hand conversion stories that resulted from listening to Catholic radio,” attests Messerly. “We have been seeking new content that has a proven track record of long-lasting conversion. Ascension’s podcasts deliver on this. They not only have some of the best Catholic teachers in the world, but they have speakers who are genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. We are proud to partner with Ascension.”
For media inquiries or to discuss partnership opportunities with Ascension please contact:
(484) 876-1400, or newsroom@ascensionpress.com.
About Ascension
Ascension is a full-fledged multimedia network and the world leader in the creation and distribution of Catholic faith formation programs. Over the past 20 years, Ascension has helped nurture the faith of over 1,000,000 souls in more than 8,000 U.S. parishes through over 50 unique faith formation programs.
About St. Gabriel Radio, Inc.
St. Gabriel Radio, Inc. is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio and is an independent EWTN Affiliate founded in 2005. The network reaches over 4 million people with the mission of sharing the Joy of the Gospel and the Splendor of Truth with a faithful and upbeat missionary zeal. For media inquiries for St. Gabriel Radip please contact: 614-459-4820, or info@stgabrielradio.com