…and how Music Station Listeners are different from Music/Teaching Stations and All-Teaching Station Listeners
In the Finney Media 2021 Why Listen?® Survey there were almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats : Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations & programs.
The centerpiece of the survey was the reasons Christian radio listeners listen. It turns out, in some cases, that listeners who came from CCM stations listen for reasons similar to listeners from Music/Teaching stations and all-Teaching stations . . . and then there are a few reasons that are different. Here are the percentages, by format, of the Main Reasons respondents gave as to why they listen:
(Move to before the list to reduce confusion.) Note: The answers in bold are the ones not common to all three formats. The ones not in bold made the Top Five Main Reasons for each of the formats.
Music Station Respondents:
| 1. I like the worshipful Christian music | 92% |
| 2. It helps me worship God throughout the day | 91% |
| 3. I want to be encouraged | 83% |
| 4. It helps me grow spiritually | 78% |
| 5. I want to get away from negativity on other stations | 67% |
Music/Teaching Station Respondents:
| 1. It helps me worship God throughout the day | 86% |
| 2. It helps me grow spiritually | 85% |
| 3. I like the worshipful Christian music | 80% |
| 4. I want to be encouraged | 76% |
| 5. It helps me understand the Bible better | 68% |
All-Teaching Station Respondents:
| 1. It helps me grow spiritually | 87% |
| 2. It helps me worship God throughout the day | 81% |
| 3. It helps me understand the Bible better | 79% |
| 4. I want to help spread Truth | 72% |
| 5. I want to be encouraged | 70% |
A few observations:
- It’s fascinating to us that “It helps me worship God throughout the day” shows up strongly even among the Teaching station listeners who play no music. Christian radio listeners, it would appear, identify not only the songs but what happens between the songs as helping with their worship experience from radio. Your songs help them worship. So do the breaks you do between the songs. Definitely something to pray about as you plan your content.
- Notice the Bible-focused and evangelism reasons that showed up higher for the stations that lean toward Teaching programs – “It helps me understand the Bible better” and “I want to help spread Truth” showing up much more strongly than those reasons did with music listeners.
- We believe that the biggest headline is this: When you look at the Main Reasons that are common to all three formats, “It helps me worship God throughout the day”, “It helps me grow spiritually” and “I want to be encouraged”, it is as if our listener is saying “I’m coming to you for SPIRITUAL ENCOURAGEMENT”.
Coming in November: The Top Five Most Interesting On-Air Topics. There is one that is much bigger than all the others. You won’t want to miss it!
