With Mitt Romney's presidential campaign putting the LDS Church and its doctrines under the media microscope in unprecedented ways, one of the faith's signature organizations — the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — is generating publicity of a different sort.
The choir's latest Christmas album, "Spirit of the Season," recently was nominated for two Grammy awards and has topped Billboard's classical music chart for several weeks in a row, bringing added exposure for the choir — and by extension, leaders say, the church — both within the United States and internationally.
The CD helped facilitate one of the choir's latest moves to use technology as a way to gain broader exposure for the church, according to choir general manager Scott Barrick. After a discussion with a high-traffic interfaith Web site, beliefnet.com, in New York last fall, selected clips from the choir's 2006 Christmas concert featuring Norwegian vocalist Sissel are available on the home page for visitors to view.
Conductor Craig Jessop introduces the musical clips as a "beliefnet exclusive," and viewers can then hear the choir sing one carol before Sissel is shown singing a second selection from the concert at the Conference Center downtown.
Barrick said the beliefnet exclusive was a way to generate interest in the church itself as well as to promote the CD.
Deborah Caldwell, vice president of content and managing editor for beliefnet, said it's difficult to tell at this point what kind of response the clip is generating since it was posted to the home page on Wednesday night. The site has an audience of 9 million per day for its e-mail newsletter, which touts what is new so visitors can take a look.
Beliefnet's traffic is about 3 million unique visitors per month, Caldwell said. "Generally with features like this, it takes a little while. We wanted to attract people over the next few days before Christmas. Just like any site, some people come right away, and others are not coming every day. People may open the newsletter in two to three days and see a link to it."
At this point, the site is hosting a contest for those who click on the choir's video and want to win one of the concert CDs. Viewers are asked to respond with their five favorite Christmas songs for a chance to win.
The publicity comes at no cost to the church, Caldwell said, noting the Web site is constantly in contact with faith groups from all across the religious spectrum.
An official with the choir asked Caldwell last fall if the site would like an exclusive clip of the Christmas concert for the Web. "I immediately said that would be great. The choir is so popular anyway, and I loved the idea of presenting it to our audience. And the church thought that beliefnet was a good venue.
"There were no financial arrangements made. They didn't pay to put it up, and we didn't pay for it. We agreed it would just be a good thing to do," she said.
Barrick said the LDS Church is comfortable with the Web site and the balanced view it presents of Latter-day Saint issues. "We've had discussions with them about the choir and the church in general. Beliefnet has been quite nice to the church, with an LDS page that's very broad-based in its treatment and very fair.
"We said we could do something just for them," he said. "I think it's a nice thing for beliefnet — they were anxious to do it. And we're obviously very pleased with the exposure. It's turned out to be a nice thing for us."
Other promotional efforts for the CD, which was released in September, included contracting with an outside public relations firm that orchestrated the church's first-ever "satellite press tour" for the choir, where Jessop was able to speak live with television stations in selected major metro areas before they showed a clip of the Christmas concert for their audiences.
Barrick said there was an effort to especially market in Minnesota, where there is a heavy concentration of Norwegian culture already familiar with Sissel.
Unlike single authors or musicians, the choir can't simply hit the road for a promotional tour, Barrick said, so technology provided the next best thing. "The Conference Center has such great communications capabilities. We can beam the choir right in there just like they're there."
Sissel has been active promoting both the Christmas CD and a new CD she produced, and she spent time earlier this month doing pledge drives for PBS television stations that are featuring the concert as part of their Christmas lineup this year.
Scott Chaffin, director of programming at KUED, Channel 7, said his station aired the concert Wednesday night locally and will do so again on Christmas Eve. Some 24,000 households tuned in Wednesday, and the show got "outstanding ratings in several major metro areas, including Minneapolis, San Francisco, St. Louis and Phoenix."
Nationally, it averaged a 1.4 rating, making it the most-watched show in PBS' prime-time lineup Wednesday. Chaffin said it looks like the program will achieve a 97.5 percent coverage of the United States, meaning "nearly every PBS station in the country will air it at least once, and in some cases, several times. It looks to me like there are 1,755 broadcasts of the program planned across the nation at different stations between now and the end of the year."
The choir's annual Christmas concert is Utah's hottest ticket, with more than a million requests logged for this year's event. Barrick said production and editing time prevents the choir from releasing the current year's concert for viewing on PBS, but even with a year's lag time, the show is among the highest-rated programs for PBS annually.
This year, the LDS Church's First Presidency sent a letter to be read by leaders of local congregations, publicizing the dates and times of the PBS broadcast.
With the Grammy nominations, the PBS broadcasts, beliefnet and an exclusive promotional package with Wal-Mart, Barrick said he expects the CD will be sold out locally just before Christmas and has already sold out the 20,000 copies that were sent to Scandinavia, where few have heard of the choir but nearly everyone knows Sissel.
"It's just flying off the shelves, and we're excited about the fact that it's exceeded all our expectations."
About 150,000 copies were produced for sale, he said. By comparison, the choir's best-selling CD in recent memory has sold 220,000 copies but has been out for several years. The numbers are surprising, though marketing is difficult once Dec. 26 rolls around, he said.
At this point, the album ranks 173rd on Billboard's top 200 albums nationwide. And if "we're fortunate enough to win a Grammy, that should help boost it," Barrick said.
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com