January 2024: Top Five Denominations among CCM Listeners

as seen in the 2023 Finney Media Why Listen® Survey

The 2023 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey included amost 15,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, 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. In our nationwide survey, we asked about denominational affiliation. Among respondents from CCM stations, here are the Top Five Denominations:

Top Five Denominations among CCM Listeners

The first four denominations comprise 80 percent. The other 20 percent are led by Catholics at 7 percent  which reminds us thatmany denominations have different ways of worship and different words they use 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: Recently a friend from our Bible Study group pulled me aside after class. She grew up Catholic and is now Baptist. She leads a Bible Study Fellowship class. She’s reads her Bible and pays attention. She was curious about a word that had come up in our group that morning that she didn’t know the meaning of, “liturgy.” I know. I was surprised too. She grew up Catholic but didn’t know the meaning of the words.

But I shouldn’t be surprised because we do research with believers who listen to Christian radio. Many don’t know the meaning of a lot of words/phrases/concepts . . . things you would expect that they know. 

If we’re going to be clear in our communication, we’ll need to consider what our multi-denominational listener, people of all nationsand denominations understands. We need to be Bible-focused and obvious. Clarity and understanding of the Truth is at stake.]

Coming in February: The Top Five Testing Songs from our nationwide research over the past few months from each of the past ten years. You’ll want to be sure to include these songs in your testing and consideration for your library!

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:

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.

“. . . 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:

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.