After seeing increased attendance and drawing a record number of television viewers this spring, the Gospel Music Association's (GMA) Dove Awards will again take place in Atlanta next year.

Held for the first time outside of Nashville on April 20 at Atlanta's historic Fox Theatre, the organization's showcase event sold out in record time, attendance was up 50% from last year's show and garnered its highest ratings on the Atlanta-based Gospel Music Channel (GMC)—with more than 1.5 million viewers—GMA officials said.

The GMA board of directors and the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau announced today that the 43rd annual Dove Awards, celebrating the best in Christian music, will return to Atlanta in April 2012, again airing on GMC.

Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO William Pete said that there was "a buzz throughout the city surrounding the show and the excitement was contagious." "We look forward to making the 43rd annual Dove Awards another success," he added.

GMA Chairman Mitchell Solarek said that the event in Atlanta earlier this year "exceeded our expectations." Atlanta "made us feel so welcomed—from the city and state leaders to the multitude of local and international media that covered the awards," he added.

GMA has been working to bounce back since the association experienced a financial crisis in 2009 that "threatened its very existence," according to Ed Leonard, the organization's former chairman whose term ended in April.

GMA posted a profit last year for the first time in three years, reduced a total debt of $921,000 to a manageable amount and sold its Nashville facility for $697,000 in October 2010. In addition, the association is to hire an executive director this year, rather than a president, as part of a new management model.

"The debt is significantly lower than what it was at this time last year," Solarek, a GMA board member for three years, told Christian Retailing. "We are in a much more stable position than we have been in the past."

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