The Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey includes almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations and programs. If you take the time to dive into the data, there are amazing stories from our listeners.
One of our big questions for these listeners is about tuneouts: things she perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away of turn off the radio. The list below is focused on just the respondents who came from all-Music stations. The percentages are the total of “very likely to turn off” and “somewhat likely to turn off”:
| 1. They have a negative, angry, judgmental tone | 85% |
| 2. An announcer talks too much | 45% |
| 3. They play commercials | 44% |
| 4. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in | 41% |
| 5. They play songs you’re tired of | 36% |
We discussed in this column last month (READ IT HERE) how the main reasons for listening to Christian radio could be summed up in two words – spiritual encouragement. Our top tuneout confirms this. The no.1 tuneout – and it isn’t even close – is a negative, angry judgmental tone.
Your listener is looking for spiritual encouragement without negativity, without anger, without judgment.
We believe that doesn’t just mean we take out things that are negative, angry, judgmental, but also that we’re proactive about including “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”*
The other tuneouts are important (“talking too much about something that’s not interesting” comes to mind), but none quite as important as your station or program being the loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, self-controlled channel in an increasingly negative, angry, judgmental world.
Coming in October: Another look at The Top Five Main Reasons Listeners of Christian Radio Listen. This time, we review all the formats in the survey and discover the Main Reasons Music stations are similar, as well as, different from listeners to Hybrid stations and Teaching stations and programs.
*”The Fruits Of The Spirit” – Galatians 5:22 ESV
