The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen® Survey is out! Almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music and Teaching stations and Teaching stations and programs. The findings are fascinating.
We presented listeners about twenty different reasons they might listen to their Christian radio station. Here are the Top Five Main Reasons for Music Station respondents. The numbers are the percentage of respondents who indicated that’s a Main Reason they listen.
Top Five Reasons CCM Listeners Listen (2023):
| 1. You like the worshipful Christian music. | 93% |
| 2. It helps you worship God throughout the day. | 91% |
| 3. You want to be encouraged. | 82% |
| 4. It helps you grow spiritually. | 76% |
| 5. It’s safe for you and my family to listen to. | 67% |
The no. 1 and no. 2 reasons are roughly equal, and a powerful impetus for us to consider the spiritual temperature of our stations. It appears that our biggest fans – the folks who took the time to complete the survey – continue to want an overtly spiritual focus to our sound.
Laser beam your vision onto the first four reasons. Those are the ones over 75% indicating it’s a main reason they listen. You could boil those four reasons down to two words: Spiritual Encouragement.
It leads us to our Action Points for CCM Stations:
- Talk just long enough. Don’t fill.
- Help her grow spiritually.
- Help her feel encouraged.
Coming next month: From the 2023 Why Listen? Survey, we take a look at the Top Reasons split out by gender and by age. Do women rate the reasons differently from men? Do younger listeners rate the reasons differently from older listeners?
