Here at Finney Media, our goal is Audience Growth—spiritually and hearts reached.
To that end, we survey Christian radio listeners from across the country for the Why Listen? Survey. This past year, almost 15,000 listeners were invited by CCM stations, Teaching/Music stations and all-Teaching stations and programs.
And the headlines from the survey are clear. Our listeners want Jesus.
They are more about spiritual encouragement, spiritual growth, the Bible, prayer and worship than many people expect.
They don’t want nor do they expect to hear from us about:
- Pop Culture
- Sports
- Politics
- News
We see more Christian audio channels who are narrowing their focus on messages about Christ, spiritual growth, spiritual encouragement and we see record numbers of listeners gravitate to their station or podcast.
In a crowded, confusing audio choice environment, we achieve more listeners, more ministry impact by narrowing our focus.
- Ask us about the station that ended hard news and started doing only stories consistent with Biblical encouragement and how they are at record audience levels.
- About the skyrocketing ministry impact at the station that requires its on-air team to use Scripture – not a verse of the day but something the announcer has researched – at least hourly.
- About how donor response went way up when the program became more focused on the most effective Biblical content, which meant reducing other messages.
- About the morning show with stronger reach than ever after they started praying more often on air.
Here’s why this matters to us all: In most towns, there used to be no more than 50 choices for audio content, the radio stations in that town. Even in the largest markets, there were no more than 75 choices.
Today? With smartphones and smart speakers, there’s thousands of options. Your podcast, your radio stations, your program are now jostling with thousands of other choices.
This is an environment for your podcast or your radio station where the only way to achieve audience growth is to narrow your focus to your mission and your listeners’ preferences and expectations. This is how to achieve more listeners and more ministry impact.
This month, I’m with the other team members of Finney Media at the 2024 NRB Convention in Nashville, TN and the team will be at the CMB Gold Event in Dallas, TX. We’d love to discuss this in more depth with you.
