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November 2023: Top Five Reasons Listeners Listen (All Christian Formats)

The Top Five Reasons Christian Radio Listeners Listen: How Music Station Listeners Are Different from Music/Teaching (Hybrid) Station and All-Teaching Station and Program Listeners 

In 2023’s Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey there were almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats: CCM stations, Music/Teaching (Hybrid) stations, and all-Teaching stations & programs.  

The centerpiece of the survey is the reasons Christian radio listeners listen. It turns out that in some cases, listeners who came from CCM stations listen for reasons similar to listeners from both Music/Teaching (Hybrid) stations and all-Teaching stations and programs and then there are a few reasons that are different. Here are the percentages, by format, of respondents who said that’s a Main Reason they listen: 

Music Station Respondents

1. You like 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 your family to listen to 67%

Music/Teaching (Hybrid) Respondents

1. It helps you grow spiritually 85%
2. It helps you worship God throughout the day 84%
3. You want to be encouraged 73%
4. You like worshipful Christian music 71%
5. It helps you understand the Bible better 71%

All-Teaching Station Respondents

1. It helps you grow spiritually 92%
2. It helps you understand the Bible better 85%
3. It helps you worship God throughout the day 81%
4. You want to hear sermons 77%
5. You want to be encouraged 71%

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. A few observations: 

  • It makes sense that “I like the worshipful Christian music” would not show up as a top Main Reason for Teaching Station respondents since those stations don’t play any music. 
  • A more Bible-focused and evangelism reason shows up higher for the stations that lean toward Teaching programs “It helps you understand the Bible better” showing up much more strongly than that reason did with music listeners. 
  • We believe that the biggest headlines are 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 CCM listener is saying “I’m coming to you for Spiritual Encouragement. Because of the differences in Hybrid and Teaching stations and programs, for those stations, it’s more Spiritual Growth. 

Coming in December: The Top Five Reasons Listeners Give. 

Written by Guest Blogger Beth Bacall, Sr. Talent Coach

Finish 2023 strong. Speak to the heart of our listeners with relatable and encouraging content. How?

What is heard coming out of the speakers begins with how you prepare for your show and the vision/programming direction of your station.

Friday night lights are on, Christmas decorations greet you as you enter Costco, and 2024 calendars are being considered. This fall season will soon be closely followed by winter happenings and a New Year. It will come faster than you think! Boost your on-air content to go beyond “something to talk about” or “what we usually talk about.”

Join me as we’ll take a glimpse at content generators geared toward the last quarter of this year. We’ll dig into how we can create moments that matter. Maybe it’s a local story, a station event, or a scripture verse that speaks to the day and time you are on the air.

Want to learn more? Reserve your seat at our next Finney Media webinar happening on September 26th at 11 a.m. CT/Noon ET. REGISTER TODAY!

 

We surveyed nationwide again this year for a snapshot of CCM and related formats. The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey has almost 15,000 respondents, over a million data points, from three different formats including, Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and All-Teaching stations/programs.

There’s much discussion about focusing our radio stations on people beyond the nuclear  family; a husband/wife both married for the first time with natural born children. In 2023, more friends are listening than just men and women who are married for the first time. Here are the Top Five Marital Statuses for CCM listeners ranked in our recent nationwide survey:

1. Married First Time 46%
2. Re-married 21%
3. Divorced 14%
4. Single/Never Married 10%
5. Widowed 8%

Here’s a way to think about this: If you’re talking to your listener as if she is married for the first time, you’re talking to less than half of your listeners. And if you assume she is married, for the first time or more often, you’re still talking to only 7 in 10. One-third of the CCM listeners in the Why Listen® survey are not currently married.

We’re coming up on the holidays and, for many of your listeners, that means blended families sharing time (35% are either re-married or divorced) or some form of spending it alone (almost 20% are either never married or widowed). It’s time to be empathetic to how complicated it is.

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey included almost 15,000 respondents andover a million data points from three different formats: Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and All-Teaching stations/programs.

There’s much discussion about focusing our radio stations on people beyond the nuclear  family; a husband/wife both married for the first time with natural born children. In 2023, there are more people listening than just men and women who are married for the first time. Here are the Top Five Marital Statuses for Hybrid (Music + Teaching) and all-Teaching listeners ranked in our recent nationwide survey:

Hybrid

1. Married First Time 50%
2. Re-married 18%
3. Divorced 13%
4. Single/Never Married 10%
5. Widowed 9%

Teaching

1. Married First Time 42%
2. Re-married 20%
3. Divorced 15%
4. Widowed 13%
5. Single/Never Married 9%

Here’s a way to think about this: If you’re talking to your listener as if she is married for the first time, you’re talking to half of your listeners. And if you assume she is married  for the first time or more often you’re still talking to under 7 in 10. Almost one-third of Hybrid listeners and almost 40 percent of Teaching listeners are not currently married.

We’re coming up on the holidays and for many of your listeners, that means blended families sharing time (30 to 35 percent are either re-married or divorced) or some form of spending it alone (about 20 percent are either never married or widowed). It’s time to be empathetic to how complicated it is.

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey. There were almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and All-Teaching stations and programs.

One of the challenges we face and opportunities we have, unlike a church which is focused on one particular denomination, is that our radio stations and programs are multi-denominational, heard by people from many denominations. In our nationwide Finney Media Why Listen® Survey, we asked about this affiliation. Among respondents from Hybrid (Music & Teaching) and All-Teaching stations and Programs, here are the Top Five Denominations:

Hybrid

1. Non-denominational/Bible/Community 34%
2. Baptist 30%
3. Pentecostal/Charismatic 8%
4. Reformed 5%
5. Presbyterian 5%

Teaching

1. Baptist 46%
2. Non-denominational/Bible/Community 27%
3. Pentecostal/Charismatic 7%
4. Lutheran 4%
5. Methodist 4%

The first two denominations in both formats total over 60 percent. The other 40 percent are other faith traditions. All these many denominations have different ways of worship and different words they use in their worship and way of communication.

For us to reach them and others who haven’t even given us a pre-set yet, we’ll need to focus on using words and concepts that most understand.

A story to help illustrate

Heard this on the radio from a prominent Christian broadcaster – “we need to exhort fellow believers.” I asked friends from a CCM station to tell me the meaning of the word exhort. One thought it meant to exercise. A friend pointed out that that is to exert. Another thought that exhort is what you do when you know something damaging about someone and you expect payment to keep it quiet – to extort. These were smart broadcasters focused on a Biblical mission, but they didn’t know that exhort means to “strongly encourage or urge”. And if the national broadcaster had said “urge” instead of “exhort”, he would have been clearer.

If we’re going to be clear in our communication, we’ll need to consider what our multi-denominational listener – people of all nations . . . and denominations – understand. Clarity and understanding of the Truth is at stake.

Coming in October: The Top Five Marital Statuses represented among Hybrid and Teaching respondents in the 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey. You already know not all are married. We’ll break down how different the respondents are in relation to marriage/life situations.

How Your Listener is the Key to Longevity

Dave Sullivan at Radio Research Consortium is a very smart man. Check out the ARTICLE and video below. It’s important to watch the whole thing because he gets into analysis of Nielsen ratings for CCM stations toward the end:

The bottom line is this: in a Nielsen PPM world of declining Weekly Cume (how many listeners listen to radio for at least five minutes in a week) and declining Weekly Time Spent Listening (how long on average those radio listeners hear a station), CCM is the non-comm format that is growing.

It’s sobering news.

It echoes what we’re seeing in our research.

Are listeners more busy, more distracted? Yes.

Are uses of other media choices up the past few years? Yes. In audio, that’s especially true with streamed music and podcasts.

Are listeners looking for hopeful, uplifting channels like yours? Definitely!

Is there opportunity for us? Most definitely!!

Arguably, this is a golden age for CCM audio channels.

If we get our heads wrapped around how, where and how often listeners consume audio.

If we get past our personal biases and “that’s-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it’s” long enough to listen to our listener. And then act on what they tell us.

These are tough actions that are hard to do. I know. Even though I’ve been in the business all of my adult life, I struggle with this crucial step, too.

This is not compromise on the ministry mission. Instead, it’s a major focus on the sound that mission takes coming out of the speakers.

In a world of declining Cume and TSL, there is a way to address this. We can help you figure out a plan to grow your ministry impact, and not be left behind. We evaluate, we list specific items to consider doing, and we work on each aspect of your sound. Let’s talk about how you can reach your potential. Email us at Info@finneymedia.com.

 

“. . . gospel clarity is the antidote to the rampant confusion.”

– Dean Inserra, The Unsaved Christian/Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey included almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and All-Teaching stations and programs.

One of the challenges we face and opportunities we have, unlike a church which is focused on one particular denomination, is that our radio stations and programs are multi-denominational. They are heard by people from many denominations, with varying traditions and practices. In our nationwide Finney Media Why Listen® Survey, we asked about denomination affiliation.

Among respondents from CCM stations, here are the Top Five Denominations:

1. Non-denominational/Bible/Community 30%
2. Baptist 30%
3. Lutheran 10%
4. Pentecostal/Charismatic 10%
5. Catholic 7%

The first two denominations total 60 percent. The other 40 percent are led by Lutherans at 10 percent and include Catholics at 7 percent. This list includes many denominations with different ways of worship and different words used in their worship and ways they communicate with each other.

For us to reach them and perhaps many who haven’t even given us a pre-set yet, we’ll need to focus on using words and concepts that many or most understand.

A story to help illustrate

This phrase was heard on the radio from a prominent Christian broadcaster. “We need to exhort fellow believers.” I asked friends from a CCM station to tell me the meaning of the word exhort. One thought it meant to exercise. A friend pointed out that that is to exert. Another thought that exhort is what you do when you know something damaging about someone and you expect payment to keep it quiet. That is extort. These were smart broadcasters focused on a Biblical mission, but they didn’t know that exhort means to “strongly encourage or urge”. And if the national broadcaster had said “urge” instead of “exhort”, he would have been clearer.

If we’re going to be clear in our communication, we’ll need to consider what our multi-denominational listener, people of all nations . . . and denominations, understand. Clarity and understanding of the Truth is at stake.

Coming in October: The Top Five Marital Statuses represented among CCM respondents in the 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey. You already know not all are married. We’ll break down how different the respondents are in relation to marriage/life situations.

Increase your ministry impact for the cost of only a little of your time 

It’s mid-year. A great time to be thinking about the second half of the year and ways to increase your ministry impact for little or no cost and just a few hours of your time. 

Let me give you an example to illustrate:

Here at Finney Media, we’re often involved with A-to-Z CCM Music Library Reviews. The kind where we’re discussing Titles and Artists and what rotations to put them in. Typically, we’ll ask our client friends to alphabetize their Titles. They’ll be looking at their A-to-Z library while we’re reviewing a separate A-to-Z list with nationwide spins. And we won’t be far into the songs beginning with A before we bring up a title that our client should consider playing.  

Not because the title is old or slow or some other programming objection. But because it just got overlooked. Somewhere along the way, they stopped playing it and never put it back in. 

By the time we get to Z, it’s likely we’ll have come across two dozen or more titles they should be playing. 

I ran a nine-day monitor of eleven randomly selected major, large and medium market stations and then picked three stations randomly. Looking at the past three years, here are three high testing songs that each of those three markets are not playing: 

Station A 

Into The Sea/Tasha Layton 2020 

The Blessing/Kari Jobe 2020 

There Was Jesus/Zach Williams 2019 

Station B 

Child Of Love/We The Kingdom 2020 

The Father’s House/Cory Asbury 2020 

Keep Me In The Moment/Jeremy Camp 2020 

Station C 

Miracles/Colton Dixon 2020 

Scars/I Am They 2018 

Rescue/Lauren Daigle 2018 

It’s possible they have low testing data on these songs. Or, it’s possible they’ve made a programming decision to not play them. But it more often seems songs like this just slipped through the cracks. High testing, often positive mood, often high energy songs that somehow ended up in Hold.  

How can you increase your ministry impact for the cost of only a little of your time? Do an audit of your music library and review your library against a monitor of other CCM stations. It’ll take no more than a couple hours. Do it this summer before the chaos of fall and/or fundraising season is upon you.  

And bring back those songs your listener loves! 

We’re ready to assist if you would like help with an audit like this. Reach us at info@finneymedia.com.  

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey is complete. Almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats – Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations and programs participated and provided fascinating information about our listeners. 

One of our big questions is about tune outs – things your listener perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away or turn off the radio. The list below is focused on the respondents who came from Hybrid and Teaching stations. The percentages are the total of “very likely to turn off” and “somewhat likely to turn off”: 

Hybrid Stations

1. They have a negative, angry, judgmental tone 75%
2. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in 52%
3. They play songs you don’t like 48%
4. An announcer talks too much 42%
5. They play commercials 41%

Teaching Stations

1. They have a negative, angry, judgmental tone 70%
2. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in 56%
3. They play songs you don’t like 56%
4. An announcer talks too much 45%
5. They play commercials 42%

Over the last couple of months, we discussed in this column (links here) how the main listener’s reasons for listening to Hybrid and Teaching Christian radio are summed up in two words – spiritual growth. Our top tune out confirms this. The no. 1 tune out – and it isn’t even close – is a negative, angry, judgmental tone. 

Your listener is looking for spiritual growth without negativity, without anger, without judgment. 

We believe that doesn’t just mean we take out things that have a negative, angry, judgmental tone, but also that we’re proactive about including “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control*.” 

The others are important 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 otherwise negative, angry, judgmental world.    

Coming in September: Top Five Denominations among Teaching & Hybrid Listeners.  

*”The Fruits Of The Spirit” – Galatians 5:22 

 

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey is complete. Almost 15,000 respondents from three different formats Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations and programs provided fascinating information on our listeners. 

One of our big questions is about tune outs – things your listener perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away or turn off the radio. The list below is focused on just the respondents who came from 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 84%
2. They play songs you don’t like 44%
3. An announcer talks too much 43%
4. They play commercials 40%
5. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in 40%

Over the last couple of months, we discussed in this column (links here) how the main listener’s reasons for listening to Christian radio could be summed up in two words – spiritual encouragement. Our top tune out confirms this. The #1 tune out – 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  are important 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 otherwise negative, angry, judgmental world.   

Coming in September: Top Five CCM Denominations. How can knowing your audience enhance your programming?

*”The Fruits Of The Spirit” – Galatians 5:22 

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