THE CHRISTIAN media giant Salem Communications announced Monday that it has purchased CMCentral.com, a Christian music website and community. Salem, one of the largest communications conglomerates in the country, already owns CCM magazine and most major Christian radio stations (among many other political and religious magazines and websites, including the conservative political portal TownHall.com). While it is highly doubtful that Salem ownership will make CMC’s content any less worth reading than it already is, the question for the media behemoth is: you’ve already got a whole dump of bad Christian music websites—why another? And most of all, why would anyone at CMCentral voluntarily surrender themselves to Salem?

Salem ownership seems to unfailingly curse media outlets with an insufferable blandness because the company imposes a very conglomerated-feeling “network” relationship on its properties. When I was a wee lad—at least still “wee” enough to like Christian music—Dallas’ KLTY, the most listened-to Christian radio station in America, was an edgy, youth-targeted station where energetic young personalities spun the latest Christian hits (and I mean hits, not worship choruses) and in-house talent produced enjoyable programming like Jon Rivers and the Morning Gang. By the time I had stopped listening to Christian music, KLTY’s on-air personalities had taken a decidedly middle-age “helping you through your workday” tone and the song rotation was whittled down to about 20 tracks (eight of which were different artists covering “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”). The station now announced hourly that it was “a service of Salem Communications,” and its cloned-sounding dullness seemed to have everything to do with that fact.

Similarly, Crosswalk.com once had a vibrant music channel with an abundance of CCM content, original reviews, and other interesting faith-related writing. Not long after its takeover by Salem, it began morphing into the generic, commercial-driven, cross-promotion site that is currently. Now you’ll find the same writers and critics, borrowed from its “partners,” offering their same uninspired conclusions about Christian music and issues. In its initial Salem incarnation in the early 2000s, it was framed in an unaesthetic, low-rent clutter of advertising for Christian products that make the common believer feel as if he or she had jumped on the bandwagon of an entire parade of self-help fads. (They’ve cleaned up the look in recent days, though the content is all borrowed from CCM).

It’s difficult to say that being under Salem’s thumb has hurt CCM as a print magazine, but their online presence succumbed to Salem promotional trash parade without resistance. CCM’s website has always been pretty sucky, but now it’s a veritable JumboTron of crowded, painfully-colored advertising (somewhere around 20% of each page is actually magazine content). Excessive modules decorated with low-resolution images are rammed together and in some cases clipped, most offering Salem-nework-spawned features. “MyCCM” is a pointless Christian-music-driven social networking service that aesthetically resembles one of those fake search sites you hit when you type an incorrect URL. As far as I can tell, most of these features are completely devoid of any interesting content or worthwhile reason to use them. This is what the Salem network has done to CCM, the 25-plus-year standard bearer that could easily have the premier website in Christian music.

But just about every Salem site is just a front for another Salem site that’s a front for the badly-programmed archives of a Salem magazine or radio program. TheFish.com is nothing but a shell—its pages are all either empty or forward to CCM content. Christianity.com is another Crosswalk with a few elements borrowed from LightSource. And Salem’s numerous Bible study and preaching sites are indistinguishable clones of one another. The whole shebang could condense into one big site tomorrow and no would notice a change, plus they could stop paying off the thrilled fourteen-year old HTML enthusiasts they must be using to keep these things running. But that would mean they’d sell a lot less advertising and, well, God forbid.

In addition to the poetic tragedy of bringing another well-established, distinctive site into their ruinous orbit, Salem is, with the purchase of CMCentral, dashing any small hope some might have had for Christian music reporting. For Christian music, having one company own every major publication that covers it—as well as all the radio stations where it is played—is a terrible idea. Christian music needs nothing if not open debate, fresh ideas, exposure to the outside culture, and more than a little prodding. When its journalism is contained with in a single corporate giant, it will become an even more insulated world of cross-promotion and self-congratulation. As Crosswalk, CCM, and now CMC all print each other’s content and a unified media front is erected, so dies the hope that Christian music reporting might ever become more insightful or Christian music criticism more productive. And Salem wants it that way.

If Christian music media were to become more intelligent (and thereby less useful for puffing up the industry), then profits on their properties—from CCM to radio stations—would take a hit. So there’s little incentive for quality analysis, incisive questions, or innovative ideas. On the contrary, Salem needs Christians to be exposed to lots of positive press that puts Christian music in a trendy light, because that’s what their radio stations are playing. There’s not even the mainstream conglomerate’s pretense of editorial separation; cross-promotion is the heart and soul of the Salem network.

There are several independent outposts left that offer Christian music coverage, including JesusFreakHideout, Christianity Today, and, of course, Patrol. But as long as the lumbering Salem monopoly controls the Christian music press, what Christians read about God’s music will be just as bad as the websites in the Salem network look. Not that CMCentral was ever a paragon of journalistic excellence or of incisive Christian music coverage or of impressive aesthetic design, but it’s a little demoralizing to see one of the final strongholds of independence fall to invading forces. (Or whatever. Maybe I really don’t care).

For now, the Salem monopoly’s presence is here to keep Christian music’s quality in the toilet. I’m not saying they shouldn’t go after every dime they can make in Christian music media, just that someone should stay around to keep it real. Here’s hoping a few good artists—and good writers—outlast the dynasty.