Multimedia Gets Religion: With sales of Christian...

Multimedia Gets Religion: With sales of Christian books and music booming throughout the country, it’s hardly surprising that leading CD-ROM developers are now looking to religion to sell more titles.

Random House and Broderbund Software, the two companies that linked up to create the pioneering “Living Books” series, will announce Tuesday the launch of “The Story of Creation” and “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” the first two of a planned series of five or six religious titles the companies expect to release this year.

The titles are being published by Little Ark Interactive, a new division of the companies’ Living Books joint venture that was created to develop and sell children’s titles based on the Old Testament.

Little Ark is hardly the first to tap the religious market. Compton’s New Media, for example, has the title “Children’s Bible Stories.” But the Random House/Broderbund combination should be able to spend more on developing and marketing quality titles than other publishers.

The project was the inspiration of Doug Carlston, chairman of Broderbund, whose father had been a priest. Little Ark turned to Red Rubber Ball, the multimedia division of Atlanta-based Nicholas Frank Co., a producer of Christian television and interactive music video titles, to develop the titles.

To ensure they reach the broadest possible audience, the CD-ROM titles are screened by a multidenominational panel of religious experts that includes a rabbi, two pastors and a theologian.

Half a millennium after it was first put in print, the Bible still represents one of every three books sold in this country, according to Little Ark. Since people of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faith all look to the Old Testament, the potential market for the titles is huge.

Little Ark also hopes to tap nonreligious families who want to teach their children about the Bible.