Nominees for the 2007 American Music Awards were announced today during a press conference at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Present for the announcement was comedian, writer and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who is returning for his fourth time to host the 35th anniversary of the popular awards show. Actress and singer Ashanti and pop rock group the Jonas Brothers were also on hand to announce the list of nominees.

Initial nominees were selected by using ballots containing names compiled from data supplied by the music industry trade publication, Radio & Records and Nielsen Soundscan, which tracks retail music sales. The ballots were then sent to a national sampling of more than 15,000 people based on what type of music they listen to, what they buy and how many albums they purchase per year. The sampling also took into account geographic location, age, sex and ethnic origin. The top three vote getters were determined to be the nominees for this year’s American Music Awards.

The nominees in the Contemporary Inspirational category are:

Jeremy Camp

Casting Crowns

TobyMac

High School Musical 2 was nominated in the Soundtracks category.

For the first time in American Music Awards history, winners will be determined by online voting at ama.abc.com (votes will be collected from Oct. 9th to Nov. 2nd). Winners will be announced at the 2007 American Music Awards ceremony, which will be broadcast live on ABC, Sunday, November 18th (8:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT) from the Nokia Theatre L.A. live in downtown Los Angeles.