[Mickey]

(Nashville, TN), January 31, 2002 - 2001 marked Sparrow Label Group’s 25th anniversary as a company and with that a year of expansion and exciting new developments for the label and artists. For the fourth consecutive year, Sparrow Label Group leads the Christian music industry with a combined total marketshare of 18.33%, and the Group’s premiere imprint, Sparrow Records, garnered 13.54% of the total marketshare. Billboard again named Sparrow the “Top Contemporary Christian Imprint” of the year with 22 charted titles and awarded WoW 2001 as “Top Contemporary Christian Album” of the year.

Sales
Three discs received gold certification from the RIAA with Steven Green’s For God And God Alone, Delirious’ Cutting Edge and I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever. CeCe Winans’ CD Alone In His Presence was certified platinum. In addition, two videos WoW Videos 1999 and WoW Videos 2000 achieved gold status.

“This past year brought much change to our nation and our industry,” remarks Peter York, President of Sparrow Records. “With Sparrow celebrating twenty-five years in business, we are fortunate as a label to reflect on amazing memories, see how much we’ve grown and the opportunity to find new and better ways to serve our artists, our industry, and ultimately the world with incredible music that strengthens us spiritually and fulfills us.”

Radio
Sparrow had a total of 14 #1 singles for a total of 42 weeks throughout the year, across the AC, CHR, Rock, and Inspirational charts according to CCM, with hits from Steven Curtis Chapman, Avalon, Newsboys and Switchfoot. Steven Curtis Chapman’s enormous hit “Live Out Loud” took the #1 position as Song of the Year for both the AC and CHR formats according to both CCM Update (12.18.01 issue) and R&R (12.14.01 issue). The song tied (with Avalon’s “Testify To Love”) as the industry’s longest record for an AC song to remain at #1, which “Live Out Loud” held for six consecutive weeks. Avalon garnered four #1 songs (“The Glory,” “Make It Last Forever,” “Come And Fill My Heart,” “Wonder Why”) from their latest CD Oxygen in just five months and their song “Wonder Why” is the #5 AC Song of the Year according to CCM Update (12.17.01 issue).

Sparrow enjoyed five #1 songs on the AC chart, four #1 songs on both the CHR and Inspirational charts, and a #1 song on the Rock chart with Switchfoot. Newsboys followed Steven Curtis Chapman with the #3 (“Who?”) and #5 (“Joy”) songs of the year in the CHR format, with Avalon taking the #2 song of the year (“The Glory”) and Phillips, Craig & Dean taking the #5 song of the year (“Let My Words Be Few”) in the Inspirational format. To close out the year, Sparrow had nine songs on the “Year End Super Top 50 Songs” chart; six songs on the “Year End Top 25” AC chart; five songs on the “Year End Top 25” Rock chart; four songs on the “Year End Top 25” CHR chart; and four songs on the “Year End Top 25” Inspirational chart.

Artist Highlights
In 2001, Steven Curtis Chapman, CeCe Winans and Avalon released new studio projects. All three albums made strong debuts in the marketplace, showing tremendous growth. Chapman’s Declaration debuted at #14 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart, selling over 69,000 copies in one week. Billboard named CeCe Winans as one of the “Top Gospel Artists” and her self-titled CD as one of the “Top Gospel Albums” in their year-end issue. Avalon, named one of Billboard’s “Top Contemporary Christian Artists” of the year, released Oxygen, selling over 35,000 copies its first week.

In addition to the success of such established artists, Sparrow’s breaking artists made a strong impact in 2001 with the release of ZOEgirl’s sophomore album, Life, which debuted at #2 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart and The Elms’ first full-length release, The Big Surprise, which garnered significant critical acclaim. Sparrow reached out to a new demographic, the tween audience, with the introduction of Jump5 and the release of their self-titled CD. The collective blend of two boys and three girls debuted on the Radio Disney tour last summer and had two songs simultaneously heating up Radio Disney’s “Top 30” chart with “God Bless The USA” peaking at #3 and “Spinnin’ Around” peaking in the Top 15. The response to “God Bless The USA” was so great, that Sparrow made the song available as a retail single, with proceeds from the song being donated by Jump5 and Sparrow to the Families Of Freedom Scholarship Fund. The single quickly made impact, charting as high as #22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Single Sales Chart. The group made their national television debut when they performed on CBS Early Show on Halloween and closed out 2001 performing on a string of dates with Dreamstreet. Sparrow also signed some very talented new artists to the label in 2001 with British DJ Andy Hunter and Aaron Spiro.

Newsboys created and delivered an unprecedented touring experience with Festival Con Dios. The ground-breaking concept brought the first-ever fully-portable travelling rock venue, which hosted more than ten bands including The Elms, Switchfoot and Earthsuit, and the incorporation of extreme sports into the concert experience. Festival Con Dios garnered extensive media coverage, including coverage in Newsweek, which led to a Christian music cover last July, as well as coverage by CNN, CNN Headline News and ESPN2’s extreme sports program “Motorworld.”

Sparrow’s music impacted film and TV on an unprecedented level in 2001 with songs by Sparrow recording artists such as Switchfoot, The Elms and Kendall Payne featured in television shows ranging from Dawson’s Creek to Providence. Switchfoot has multiple songs appearing in the upcoming feature film, “A Walk To Remember.” In addition, Switchfoot songs will be included on the film’s soundtrack and are featured in the film’s trailer. Kendall Payne’s song “Closer To Myself” was featured in the film and on the trailer for Ashley Judd and Greg Kinnear film, “Someone Like You.” Due to a large musical presence on the hit show “Tough Enough,” MTV paid more licensing fees to Sparrow’s publishing partner, EMI CMP, in one cycle than any other single entity in MTV’s history.

New Media
Sparrow’s commitment to expanding and developing new avenues to connect Sparrow artists with consumers continues as the consumer demand for online information and music on artists continues to grow stronger than ever. Sparrow artists were seen online in major areas, such as videos and music from Steven Curtis Chapman, Jump5, The Elms and others featured on Windows Media.com’s homepage and music home page. In fact, Jump5’s visibility online has been phenomenal. The song “God Bless The USA” outperformed everything else on Windows Media.com’s page the day it was available. Jump5’s video for “Spinnin’ Around” was also featured on Nickelodeon’s website Nick.com. Microsoft introduced a new software system called Windows XP in 2001 and Jump5’s video for “Spinnin’ Around” was one of several music videos featured on Microsoft’s demo of the new software system that was mailed to millions of people last fall.

Steven Curtis Chapman’s song “God Is God” from his current CD Declaration, was given away as a free download in response to the tragic events our country faced last year, giving millions of people the opportunity to download the song free of charge.

ZOEgirl’s website, www.ZOEgirlOnline.com, one of Sparrow Records’ most popular artist site, re-launched with the release of ZOEgirl’s sophomore CD Life. The fully interactive website invites users to interact online on a whole new level, featuring such unique tools as ZOEstationery Maker, which enables the user to create custom printable stationery; ZOEkaraoke, where fans can sing along to three favorite ZOEgirl songs; Music Video Director, allowing fans to create their own ZOEgirl music video; and ZOEmusic Maker, allowing users to create their own remixed version of the song “Dismissed.” The site also offers a place for fans to engage on a personal level with ZOEgirl and their ministry, providing an outlet for fans to write in and ask ZOEgirl questions and receive personal replies on the site.

Modern Worship
Sparrow Label Group’s commitment to building the Modern Worship movement brought exciting new developments in 2001 with the launch of sixstepsrecords, a joint venture with Louie Giglio. Best known for his leadership in the Passion conferences and college worship movement, Louie brought together Passion worship leaders Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall and David Crowder to each record for the label.

Sparrow Label Group continues to strengthen the genre’s brand identity through the expansion of the Worship Together label, the leading provider of resources to the church, by releasing such projects as I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever 2, a follow up to the gold-selling I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever: 25 Modern Worship Songs For A New Generation, which was Sparrow Label Group’s highest Modern Worship debut and best-selling Modern Worship project to date.

Accolades and Accomplishments
New artists and established artists alike continued to stretch the industry and raise the standard of artistic excellence. Steven Curtis Chapman once again won the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Award for “Male Vocalist Of The Year.” Nichole Nordeman was honored with the Dove Award for “Female Vocalist Of The Year.” Six-time Grammy winning vocalist CeCe Winans, received a Dove award for “Contemporary Gospel Recorded Song Of The Year” for “Alabaster Box” and Kendall Payne won the Dove award for “Modern Rock/Alternative Album Of The Year” for Jordan’s Sister.

Avalon and Switchfoot were both honored in 2001 with Grammy nominations for “Rock Gospel Album Of The Year” (Learning To Breathe) and “Pop Contemporary Gospel Album Of The Year”(Joy). Switchfoot’s lead vocalist, Jon Foreman was recognized for his excellent guitar talent by Gibson, receiving the “Les Paul Horizon Award”at the Orville H. Gibson Guitar Awards in February of 2001. Michelle Tumes received ASCAP’s highest honor when she was named ASCAP’s “Christian Songwriter Of The Year” in April of 2001.

2001 brought the American Music Awards announcement of a new category recognizing Christian music, with Steven Curtis Chapman receiving a nomination in this new category. Chapman’s passion and advocacy for adoption prompted notice and recognition beyond his career in music when Congress invited him and his family to Washington DC in 2001, where he received the Congressional Coalition on Adoption’s “Angel In Adoption” award to honor his efforts on behalf of adoption. As the Chapman’s continue to build their support and awareness for the need for more people to adopt, they began an organization called Shaohannah’s Hope, named after their own adopted daughter Shaohannah, to help those wanting to adopt or know more about adoption.

Sparrow Label Group (SLG) is comprised of Sparrow, re:think, Star Song, Sparrow Kids, Worship Together and Straightway labels. SLG is part of the EMI Christian Music Group (EMI CMG).