Research Archives - Page 12 of 15

The Top 5 Reasons Christian Radio Listeners Listen . . . and how Music Station Listeners are different from Music/Teaching Stations and All-Teaching Stations

In the Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey 2018 there were 26,800 respondents from four different formats – Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, all-Teaching stations, and Teaching programs.

The centerpiece of the survey is the reasons Christian radio listeners listen. It turns out that listeners who came from CCM stations listen, in some cases, for reasons similar to listeners to Music/Teaching stations and all-Teaching stations . . . 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) It helps me worship God throughout the day 91%

1) I like the worshipful Christian music 91%

3) I want to be encouraged 80%

4) It helps me grow spiritually 77%

5) It’s safe for me and my family to listen to 62%

Music/Teaching Station Respondents
1) It helps me grow spiritually 86%

2) It helps me worship God throughout the day 83%

3) It helps me understand the Bible better 74%

4) I want to be encouraged 70%

5) I like the worshipful Christian music 63%

All-Teaching Station Respondents
1) It helps me grow spiritually 89%

2) It helps me worship God throughout the day 81%

3) It helps me understand the Bible better 80%

4) I want to help spread Truth 69%

5) I want to be encouraged 67%

The answers in bold are the ones not common to all three formats. The ones not in bold made the Top 5 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.
Music Station listeners were the only ones who scored “It’s safe for me and my family to listen to” in the Top 5. And even among Music listeners, it’s a distant fifth. Some of that is likely because the percentage of respondents with children under 18 in the home continues to drop. It’s down from 38% in the Why Listen? 2016 Survey to 32% in the 2018 Survey.
More Bible-focused and evangelism reasons 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 5 Most Interesting On Air Topics. There is one that is much bigger than all the others. We’ll have it for you in November!

The Top 5 Tuneouts for CCM Listeners

The Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey 2018 is out with results from 26,800 respondents in four different formats – Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, all-Teaching stations, and Teaching programs.

One of the questions asked was about tuneouts – things your listener perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away or turn off the radio. The list of tuneouts 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 85%

2) Announcer talks too much 50%

3) Plays songs you don’t like 48%

4) They talk about a topic I’m not interested in 44%

5) They play commercials 42%

We discussed in this column last month (link here) how the main listener reasons for listening to Christian radio could be summed up in two words – spiritual encouragement. Our top tuneout confirms this. The #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*.”

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 otherwise negative, angry, judgmental world.

Coming in October – Another look at the Top 5 Main Reasons Christian Radio listeners listen. This time, we review the Main Reasons in the whole survey – all formats – and discover how listeners to Music Stations are similar to – and different from – listeners to Teaching stations and programs.

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

The Top 5 Reasons CCM Listeners Listen . . . plus the next five

The Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey 2018 is out! 26,800 respondents from four different formats – Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, Teaching stations, and Teaching programs. The findings are fascinating. And many. This month’s Finney’s Fast Five is the first in a series of findings we’ll be presenting. We asked about twenty different reasons a listener might listen to the Christian radio station or program that sent the survey. Here are the Top 5 for Music Station respondents . . . plus the next five. The numbers are the percentage of respondents who indicated that’s a Main Reason they listen.

1) It helps me worship God throughout the day. 91%

2) I like the worshipful Christian music. 91%

3) I want to be encouraged. 80%

4) It helps me grow spiritually. 77%

5) It’s safe for me and my family to listen to. 62%

6) I want to get away from negativity on other stations. 61%

7) The presentation is calming. 50%

8) I want to help spread Truth. 49%

9) I feel the speakers care when they pray on-air for someone in need. 43%

10) The on-air hosts are like family members I want to connect with everyday. 40%

The #1 reason – It helps me worship God throughout the day – is a reason we didn’t ask in our 2016 survey. Thanks to our friends at Advocace – Paul Martin and Dr. Paul Virts – for recommending we ask it. And what a wow! It appears that our biggest fans – the folks who took the 20 minutes or so to complete the survey – would like an overtly spiritual focus to our stations.

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.

Coming in September – From the Why Listen? 2018 Survey – The Top 5 Tuneouts.

The Top 5 Songs Sung By Women . . . plus the Next Five!

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months about their favorite Christian songs. We’ve seen a resurgence in the past couple years of songs sung by women. Here are the Top 5 Titles sung by women . . . and the next five.

1) Francesca Battistelli/Holy Spirit

2) Hillsong United/Oceans

3) Lauren Daigle/Trust In You

4) Hillary Scott/Thy Will

5) Lauren Daigle/First

6) Lauren Daigle/How Can It Be

7) Natalie Grant/King Of The World

8) Mandisa/Only The World

9) Selah/Bless The Broken Road

10) Mary Mary/Shackles

Francesca Battistelli’s Holy Spirit continues to test with high passion and low burn four years after its release!

And look at how Lauren Daigle leaped into the Top 6 with all three of her first releases!

Coming in August to Finney’s Fast Five, we release our first data from the Finney Media Why Listen?(R) 2018 Survey. With 28,600 participants, over 70 reports representing hundreds of stations and programs, we’re excited to begin sharing the groundbreaking revelations from the study.

Finney’s Fast Five Plus June 2018
The Top 5 Worship Songs . . . plus the Next Five!

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months about their favorite Christian songs. We continue to see worship titles score well. Here are the Top 5 Worship Titles . . . and the next five . . . all songs that deserve consideration if you play music.

1) Chris Tomlin/Whom Shall I Fear

2) Chris Tomlin/Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

3) Francesca Battistelli/Holy Spirit

4) Chris Tomlin/Our God

5) Matt Redman/10,000 Reasons

6) Chris Tomlin/I Lift My Hands

7) Phil Wickham/This Is Amazing Grace

8) Chris Tomlin or Zealand Worship/Good Good Father

9) Chris Tomlin/At The Cross

10) Newsboys/God’s Not Dead (Like A Lion)

We believe that Tomlin guy is going to do okay. Six of the Top 10 is pretty amazing!

Coming in July to Finney’s Fast Five, we’ve seen a resurgence in our testing in the past few months in songs by female artists. We’ll bring you the Top 5 Songs by Female Artist… plus the Next Five.

The Top 5 Things Listeners Want You to Keep Doing

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months this question: If you could tell the leaders of your favorite Christian radio station to keep doing one thing, what would it be? From the open-ended answers, these are the Top 5 themes they mentioned:

1. Encouragement

2. Uplifting Music

3. Prayer

4. God Stories

5. No Commercials

#1 – The feeling of encouragement. It continues to show up, time after time, as the #1 reason Christian radio listeners listen. Not the word “encouragement” or “encouraging” . . . there’s nothing wrong with using the words . . . but if you want to really deliver for your listener, make your station or program feel encouraging to her.

#2 – Uplifting music. Always a top reason.

#3 – Prayer is interesting. We have seen so much interest in prayer on the radio lately, more than we’ve seen in the past. Your listener doesn’t just want you to talk about prayer .. . they want you to pray!

#4 – Uplifting stories of God’s work in the world are what she wants. Testimonies are part of this, particularly if they have encouraging endings (see #1).

#5 – If you’re a non-com who runs little or no underwriting or commercials, your advantage is big and continues to grow!

You can boil down the top list to this: Be spiritual encouragement, whether with music or words. Make every minute another opportunity to encourage. To quote my friend Steve Lawhon at Shine FM in Baltimore, “More breaks that connect . . . and fewer that don’t!”

Coming in May to Finney’s Fast Five, we asked listeners across the US: “If you could tell the leaders of your favorite Christian radio station to change one thing, what would it be?” From the open-ended answers, we’ll give you the Top 5 themes.

The Top 5 Christian Books Remembered . . . Other Than the Bible

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months about their favorite Christian book they have read other than the Bible. Here are the most mentioned titles:

1. (tied) Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers

1. (tied) The Shack, William P. Young

3. Mere Christianity, CS Lewis

4. Left Behind Series, Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye

5. (tied) Heaven is for Real, Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent

5. (tied) Jesus Calling, Sarah Young

5. (tied) Knowing God, J.I. Packer

We see this as a little peek into the heart of our listener. Other than the Bible, not only what have they read, but also, what stuck? And what did they remember?

Fascinating that 3 of the Top 4 are Christian fiction.
The Shack, likely propelled by the movie, tied for #1.
For male decision makers, it’s important you understand the appeal of Francine Rivers.
Mere Christianity, 66 years after first publication still ranks high! If you’re in Christian media and you’ve never read it, you have some homework.
Check out the staying power of Left Behind, now almost 25 years since the first book was released.
Note that only one of the top books is a daily devotional.
And for the first time since we started surveying, A Purpose Driven Life/Rick Warren did not make the list.
It’s also worth noting that none of these are recent releases.

Coming in May to Finney’s Fast Five, we ask Christian radio listeners what they want you to keep doing on your Christian radio station or program. We’ll show you the Top 5 answers…

Finney’s Fast Five Plus | March 2018
The Top 5 Morning Show Topics

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months about different Morning Show topics and how interested they are in hearing them on the radio, with 1 = not interested and 9 = very interested. The numbers below are averages of all responses in multiple markets.

Here are their Top 5 answers:

1. A word of encouragement from a Biblical devotional 8.2

2. A Word from Scripture and how it might apply to your life today 8.0

3. Free, fun activities to do with your family around town this weekend 7.6

4. A story from a listener about how God has done a miracle in her life 7.5

5. A prayer of thanksgiving from a local pastor 7.2

We began asking about interest in various Morning Show topics years ago, and, at first, didn’t include spiritual topics. We would ask about activities with your family, the weather, ways to volunteer, etc. And then a friend suggested we include spiritual topics. And we did.

And from the start, topics like what you see at the top of this list soared to the top. Note specifically the two topics that score above an 8 average. In our 1 to 9 scoring system, the only way to get an 8 or higher is for almost everyone to give a high score. The scores are high and these topics are nearly unanimously positive.

Biblical encouragement, helping your listener grow spiritually, Scripture, prayer – all come back from Christian radio listeners as high interest.

One of the great secrets about our business, even among those who work in it, is that your listener wants more of the very thing your station ought to be about – Jesus!

Christ . . . Christian encouragement . . . Christian growth. Not sports . . . not politics . . . not pop culture . . . not Presidential tweets . . . but about Christ.

In April, we tackle a new subject. We ask Christian radio listeners: “Other than the Bible, what are the Top Christian books you’ve ever read?” We bring you their Top 5 answers.

The Bottom 5 Morning Show Topics

We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months about different Morning Show topics and how interested they are in hearing them on the radio, with 1 = not interested and 9 = very interested. The numbers below are averages of all responses in multiple markets.

Here are their Bottom 5 answers, ranked from worst to less worse.

1. The latest on President Trump’s tweet’s	2.7
2. The latest Hollywood news	3.2
3. Update on the local NFL team	3.3
4. Tips on ways to better communicate with your children	6.6
5. Three ways to improve your marriage or relationships today	6.9

Notice the three lowest scoring topics are below an average of 4. This is indicative of what we see pretty much every time we ask Christian radio listeners.

They are mostly not interested in:

1) Sports.

2) Hollywood/Pop Culture.

3) Politics

To grow your listener impact, better to stay away from these.

The topics at #4 – communicating with your kids, and at #5 – ways to improve your marriage and relationships – are interesting. When we dive into comments from listeners about these two questions, here’s what we see:

For “Tips on ways to better communicate with your children”: if the respondent has kids, communicating with her kids is usually interesting to her. It’s the people who don’t have kids or who don’t have a good relationship with their kids who go negative . . . way negative. And that’s enough of the Christian radio listening audience to make this not a unanimously interesting topic.

We see similar issues with “ways to improve your marriage or relationships”. We see comments from people who are never married . . . or who had a bad marriage experience, that this topic can be painful and a possible turnoff.

Both of these topics, though, are closer to the cluster of topics that are the highest rated. Nothing like the low interest we see on sports, pop culture and politics.

Interested in the top-rated topics with Christian radio listeners? That’s our Finney’s Fast Five for March! Stay tuned.

Finney’s Fast Five Plus January 2018

The Top 5 Social Media Outlets For CCM Listeners

Finney Media does research across the US – representative sample surveys that give stations detailed data on not just songs, but also listener perceptions about Christian radio. We asked Contemporary Christian Music Radio listeners in multiple markets across the North America during the past few months what social media outlets they use most. Here are their Top 5 Answers, ranked by the percentage of respondents who indicate they use that Social Media site:

1. Facebook	90%
2. Youtube	72%
3. Instagram	54%
4. Pinterest	53%
5. Snapchat	32%

Facebook . . . Among Christian radio listeners, #1 by the mile. Facebook use is widely prevalent among our listeners, with 90% indicating they are on FB.

We included YouTube as a choice since it has a social component to it. A strong #2.

Note then how strong Instagram and Pinterest are. For your station or program, for a Christian radio listener, be thinking Instagram and Pinterest after FB and YouTube.

Then note how Twitter isn’t even in the Top 5. The percentages of use among our listeners are so low – under 25% indicating they use Twitter – that we believe you have a challenging strategic decision to make – de-emphasize Twitter and focus your energies more on the Top 4 – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest OR be intentional about reaching people who don’t currently listen but might if reached through Twitter.

Coming in the February Finney’s Fast Five: The Bottom Five Morning Show Topics. These are the topics to run away from – because your listener will run away if you talk about them.

October 2018: Top Five Reasons Christian Radio Listeners Listen

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