Word Canada closes shop

One-time top Christian entertainment
distributor closes shop

Frank Stirk
BC CW Correspondent
bc@christianweek.org

RICHMOND, BC–For the 80 or so employees of Word Entertainment Canada, the joy of the Christmas season quickly turned to sorrow. In late December, they were told their company–once a national leader in distributing Christian music and books–was going out of business.

Word's current owners, the Nashville-based Gaylord Entertainment Company, announced the closure.

The first phase of staff layoffs took place in January. More will be let go in March. By April 30, Word's Canadian operations will cease to exist.

"It's very sad," says Christian

entrepreneur Gerry Scott, who founded the company–then known as Word Records–in 1962. "I find I'm going through a grieving process."

Although Scott no longer owns the business, he still maintains a keen personal interest in the operation. "A lot of the current staff were my staff members when I owned the company," he says. "Some of them worked for me for 25 years."

At its peak in the 1980s, Word was the sole Canadian distributor and manufacturer for more than half a dozen major American-based Christian book and music companies, including Word Music, Word Books, Sparrow Records, Reunion Records and Maranatha Music.

In 1989, Scott sold Word to the American Broadcasting Company in New York, which had purchased Word Entertainment U.S. 10 years earlier. He said he was "extremely impressed" with how ABC continued to run it as "a Christian-motivated company," despite its new secular ownership.

But since then, Word Entertainment has passed through several different hands. ABC sold it to Thomas Nelson, the book publishers, who in turn sold the music side of the business to Gaylord, which also owns a hotel chain and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

In November, Gaylord's new management announced it was selling Word to AOL Time-Warner for $84.1 million, so that–according to a news release–it could "sharpen its focus on the company's core hospitality and entertainment businesses," including casinos.

(As The Tennessean reported at the time, "Word has been a constant earnings drain since Gaylord paid Thomas Nelson Inc. $120 million for it four years ago.")

It was this decision that spelled the end for Word in Canada. According to Scott, when Gaylord sold Word Entertainment to AOL Time-Warner, it also "instructed [Word Entertainment Canada president] Terry Dawes to close down the Canadian operation."

Scott says what happened to his company underscores the risk Christians take when they sell their businesses to non-Christians. "When Christians owned the companies, most of them had a spiritual commitment, which was the reason they got into the business in the first place. In a lot of cases, that goes down the tubes" when the secular owners take over.

The question now is who will take over Word Canada's book and music distribution network.

"Nobody knows at this point where the book publishing side goes to and where the music side goes to," says Scott. "And so right now it's a real void."

Those likely to be most affected by Word's demise are Christian retailers. But Gordon Wittchens, the manager of Celebration Christian Store in Surrey is hopeful that this "void" will soon be filled.

"I'm sure it won't be long until someone picks up the distributorship–probably an eastern supplier," he says. "But until that happens, we'll probably have to import direct from the States. That we can live with."

Wittchens says a bigger problem for him is the fact that Word "sold us excess product in the fall, but now they won't take it back. And we can't do anything about it."

Several telephone calls to Word requesting an interview were not returned.