Research Archives - Page 4 of 13

The 2021 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey! Almost 11,000 respondents with over one million data points from three different formats, including Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, All-Teaching stations & programs.

We asked about topics you might talk about on your stations and how interested your listener is in those topics. The list below is focused on the 3,000+ respondents who came from Music stations. These are the percentages who indicated they are “very interested”:

1. A word from Scripture and how it might apply to your life today	83%
2. Information on a local Christian concert	52%
3. Bible studies on topics such as prophecy, spiritual gifts, marriage, etc.	49%
4. Stories about how people helped a neighbor after a tragedy	47%
5. A prayer of thanksgiving from a local pastor	42%

SPIRITUAL ENCOURAGEMENT!

In whatever form or forum we ask, our Christian radio listener is attracted to spiritual encouragement. Notice just how far ahead of every other answer “A Word from Scripture and how it might apply to your life today” shows up!

What topics score lowest?

Second to last is “the latest decisions of politicians” at 11 percent “very interested”. Dead last – run quickly away from this – is “the latest news from Hollywood” at 2 percent “very interested”.

Coming in December: The Top Five Reasons Christian Radio Listeners Give To Your Station. The Why Listen? Survey includes a lot (what percentage were donors?) of donors, so we’re asking the folks who support you now.

…and how Music Station Listeners are different from Music/Teaching Stations and All-Teaching Station Listeners

In the Finney Media 2021 Why Listen?® Survey there were almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats : Music stations, Music/Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations & programs.

The centerpiece of the survey was the reasons Christian radio listeners listen. It turns out, in some cases, that listeners who came from CCM stations listen for reasons similar to listeners from Music/Teaching stations and all-Teaching stations . . . and then there are a few reasons that are different. Here are the percentages, by format, of the Main Reasons respondents gave as to why they listen:

(Move to before the list to reduce confusion.) Note: 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.

Music Station Respondents:

1. I like the worshipful Christian music	92%
2. It helps me worship God throughout the day	91%
3. I want to be encouraged	83%
4. It helps me grow spiritually	78%
5. I want to get away from negativity on other stations	67%

Music/Teaching Station Respondents:

1. It helps me worship God throughout the day	86%
2. It helps me grow spiritually	85%
3. I like the worshipful Christian music	80%
4. I want to be encouraged	76%
5. It helps me understand the Bible better	68%

All-Teaching Station Respondents:

1. It helps me grow spiritually	87%
2. It helps me worship God throughout the day	81%
3. It helps me understand the Bible better	79%
4. I want to help spread Truth	72%
5. I want to be encouraged	70%

A few observations:

It’s fascinating to us that “It helps me worship God throughout the day” shows up strongly even among the Teaching station listeners who play no music. Christian radio listeners, it would appear, identify not only the songs but what happens between the songs as helping with their worship experience from radio. Your songs help them worship. So do the breaks you do between the songs. Definitely something to pray about as you plan your content.
Notice the Bible-focused and evangelism reasons that 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 Five Most Interesting On-Air Topics. There is one that is much bigger than all the others. You won’t want to miss it!

The Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey includes almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, and all-Teaching stations and programs. If you take the time to dive into the data, there are amazing stories from our listeners.

One of our big questions for these listeners is about tuneouts: things she perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away of turn off the radio. The list below is focused on just the respondents who came from all-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. An announcer talks too much	45%
3. They play commercials	44%
4. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in	41%
5. They play songs you’re tired of	36%

We discussed in this column last month (READ IT HERE) how the main reasons for listening to Christian radio could be summed up in two words – spiritual encouragement. Our top tuneout confirms this. The no.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.”*

The 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 increasingly negative, angry, judgmental world.

Coming in October: Another look at The Top Five Main Reasons Listeners of Christian Radio Listen. This time, we review all the formats in the survey and discover the Main Reasons Music stations are similar, as well as, different from listeners to Hybrid stations and Teaching stations and programs.

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

…plus the next five.

The 2021 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey includes almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music and Teaching stations and Teaching stations and programs. The findings are fascinating!

We presented listeners about 20 different reasons they might listen to their Christian radio station. Here are the Top Five Main Reasons 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. I like the worshipful Christian music.	92%
2. It helps me worship God throughout the day.	91%
3. I want to be encouraged.	83%
4. It helps me grow spiritually.	78%
5. I want to get away from negativity on other stations.	67%
6. It’s safe for me and my family to listen to.	65%
7. The presentation is calming.	55%
8. I want to help spread Truth.	53%
9. I feel the speakers care when they pray on-air for someone in need.	45%
10. The hosts sometimes add light-hearted humor that’s family-friendly.	44%

The no.1 and no.2 reasons are roughly equal, and really a powerful reason for us to consider the spiritual temperature of our stations. It appears that our biggest fans – the folks who took the 20 minutes or so to complete the survey – continue to want an overtly spiritual focus to our stations.

Intentionally focus 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 Point for CCM Stations: Talk just enough, with Spiritual Encouragement, about something interesting to your listener …and then play a song she loves.

Coming in September: From the 2021 Why Listen?® Survey, The Top Five Listener Tuneouts.

Year-round, Finney Media tests CCM music across the United States. So, we get a view on how listener tastes change over time. We thought it would be fun and helpful to give you a look at the top Female Artists, which we reviewed in April, Male Artists in MAY, and Top Groups in June. This month, we bring all three of those rankers together into one big Top 10 CCM Artists, based on the latest research of library songs from across the country.* Here they are:

10. (tied) Elevation Worship

10. (tied) Big Daddy Weave

8. (tied) Newsboys

8. (tied) Zach Williams

7. Third Day

6. Lauren Daigle

5. Toby Mac

4. Jeremy Camp

3. Chris Tomlin

2. MercyMe

1. Casting Crowns

We’ve been doing these rankers for quite a few years, and Chris Tomlin has finished at the top every year for the past ten years or so, often by a wide margin over no. 2. This year, though, we have a new no. 1 CCM Artist: Casting Crowns.

Chris’s songs still score very well. And we recommend that you make his songs from over the years a part of a rich CCM library.

This year, though, with almost 20 years of hits, Casting Crowns grabs the top spot! Many of their songs still score really well, from older cuts like Voice Of Truth and Praise You In This Storm to more recent smashes like Nobody.

And MercyMe, continuing to turn out one great song after another, is a close no. 2. I Can Only Imagine still tests great, so does Greater and a whole lot of other songs from their past 20+ years.

Next month. The Top Five Reasons CCM Listeners Listen. We do an encore presentation from the 2021 Why Listen Survey, always a great reminder of why listeners listen. If we’ll listen to them, and respond, we’ll achieve more hearts, more deeply.

*We used a weighted scoring system – higher scoring songs mean higher weighting. All scores come from the past few months of nationwide testing.

Year-round, Finney Media tests CCM music across the United States so, we get a view on how listener tastes change over time. We thought it would be insightful and helpful to give you a look at the Top Female Artists, which we reviewed in April, Male Artists, which we reviewed in May, Top Groups and then the overall Top Artists (in July) based on the latest research of library songs from across the country. We used a weighted scoring system – higher scoring songs mean higher weighting. All scores come from the past few months of nationwide testing.

We define Groups as an artist comprised of multiple members, like Casting Crowns, MercyMe or Cain. Here are the Top Five CCM Group Artists:

5. (tied) Elevation Worship

5. (tied) Big Daddy Weave

4. Newsboys

3. Third Day

2. MercyMe

1. Casting Crowns

Casting Crowns, is our biggest testing Artist Group now with close to 20 years of hits and with 14 high testing songs, led by Praise You In This Storm.

MercyMe. If you do listener testing, you know that I Can Only Imagine still tests near the top. But they also have over a dozen other songs that still test strong enough for playlist consideration.

Third Day. 13 different high testing songs in our latest research, stretching from 2000’s God of Wonders to 2014’s Soul on Fire.

Newsboys. Like our other groups at the top, they have lots of years of still great testing songs, from He Reigns to We Believe.

Big Daddy Weave. Again, lots of years of great testing songs, the latest being I Know.

Elevation Worship. If there is a surprise in our Top Five, it’s this group. Their great testing songs are numerous and more recent than our other Top Five artists, beginning with 2016’s O Come to The Altar.

Next month. The Top Ten Artists Overall – We bring together our Top Women, Top Men and Top Groups into one big Overall Top Ten Artists in our most recent testing. A preview…for the first time in years, we have a new no. 1 high-testing artist.

Year-round, Finney Media tests CCM music across the United States to get a view on how listener tastes change over time. We thought it would be fun and helpful to give you a look at the Top Female Artists (READ HERE), Top Male Artists (in May), Top Groups (in June) and then the overall Top Artists (in July) based on the latest research of library songs from across the country. We used a weighted scoring system – higher scoring songs mean higher weighting. All scores come from the past few months of nationwide testing.

Here are the Top Five Male CCM Artists:

5. Crowder

4. Zach Williams

3. TobyMac

2. Jeremy Camp

1. Chris Tomlin

Chris Tomlin continues to dominate our Top Male Artists. His long list of great testing songs – 15 of them – fuels being at the top of this ranking again, right where he’s been for 15 years. Think about that! Few artists, in any format, have had that kind of run.

Jeremy Camp, with 12 great testing songs that come from his now close-to-20-year career, is a strong no. 2.

Similarly, TobyMac – who also has lots of years, has 10 great testing songs throughout his career.

It’s Zach Williams who is the closest thing to a surprise in our new Top 5. His first big hit was Chain Breaker, just six years ago. He rides into the Top 5 on the strength of six different very high testing songs.

Crowder? Great artist! Great career! And his songs – older and newer – are testing stronger than ever.

Next month: The Top Five CCM Groups. Great songs from groups with a lot of great testing songs over a lot of years; with the exception of one newcomer group, whose first big testing song is, just like the guys, from six years ago! That research summary is coming in June.

If you get to know your listener, and you gear your program, station or podcast more toward your listener, you’ll have more listeners.

Said a different way, those of us who think about our program, station or podcast all day are not good at judging what our listeners want, unless we better understand who’s listening, where they’re listening, and what’s on their mind and heart when they’re listening. This means we must take our personal opinion out and listen to them.

How do we know this? We’ve asked. In research. And we’ve observed what results in more listeners. After programming stations, programs and podcasts for over 40 years, and observing what the highest performing entities do, I’m more convinced than ever that listening to your listeners and acting on that information really is the secret sauce.

The following “Four A’s” are how we recommend you think about this:

Attitude. Listening to your listener is an attitude . . . of putting your personal opinion aside and pursuing what your listener thinks, what preferences she has, how and where she listens, and what will cause her to stay or come back more often.
Ask. The Right Questions of The Right People. True story. I once was the Program Director of an NFL team’s radio flagship station. There was a change in the team’s front office leadership and along with new people, they brought in a new song to play at home games to celebrate the team scoring. Problem – fans loved the old song they had played for years when the team scored! And were very vocal about it. When the team scored in their first home game after the announcement and played the new song, fans booed! The team decided quickly to go back to the original celebration song. When we asked team leadership how this could have happened, they said they’d done research and the new song was more popular. We then asked where they had done the research. They said they’d researched people in a town . . . 500 miles away, where likely no one knew the song or cared about the team. In fact, there’s a rival NFL team in that city! That’s a story of researching the wrong people.
Acknowledge. That you will be surprised. Often, what we discover from listeners is different from what we expected. We’ve been surprised by Christian radio listeners’ appetite for worship music (it’s huge) and their interest in humor (it’s big) as part of a Christian station or program. And surprised by that same audience’s rejection of chatter about pop culture being a part of a Christian station’s programming recipe. Chances are when you listen to your listeners, you too will be surprised!
Act. On the information. It doesn’t count if it’s not coming out of the earbuds. Listen to your listeners, then focus on how you’re going to make the sound they want happen.

I presented these ideas at the NRB Convention in Nashville. Visit our CONFERENCE RESOURCE page for a copy of the PowerPoint from that presentation. Contact us for further conversation on this key area.

Year-round, Finney Media tests CCM music across the United States so we get a view on how listener tastes change over time. We thought it would be fun and helpful to give you a look at the Top Female Artists, Male Artists (in May), Top Groups (in June) and then the overall Top Artists (in July) based on the latest research of library songs from across the country. We used a weighted scoring system – higher scoring songs mean higher weighting – over the past few months of testing.

Here are the Top Five Female CCM Artists:

5. Kari Jobe

3. (tied) Anne Wilson

3. (tied) Francesca Battistelli

2. Tasha Layton

1. Lauren Daigle

We’ve seen a resurgence of great testing on songs by women in the past couple of years, led by Lauren Daigle’s amazing string of hits. And we have a couple of newcomers to the list – Tasha Layton and Anne Wilson. Anne Wilson’s My Jesus is right now our top testing library song!

Next month: The Top Five Male CCM Artists. You’ll likely be surprised by who makes the list. Who rises to the top in our latest nationwide research?

One of the hottest topics among Christian radio friends right now is podcasting. Fascinating findings in the The 2021 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey, with almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats: Music/Teaching (Hybrid) stations, All-Teaching stations/programs, and Music (CCM) stations on this topic.

Here’s the headline: There are dramatic differences in the use of Christian podcasts among the three formats.

Here’s how we asked the question: In the last week or so, how many times have you listened online to podcasts (online programming available for you to listen anytime) from any Christian radio ministry?

We took the percentage of respondents who answered from “10+ times” to “1” and added them up. And then we compared to the percentage who indicated they did not listen to online podcasts from any Christian radio ministry. And here are the results by format of those who indicated hearing podcasts from Christian radio ministries in the past week:

CCM Listeners: 35%

Hybrid (Music and Teaching) Listeners: 51%

Teaching/Spoken Word Stations & Programs: 63%

What does this mean?

Nearly two-thirds of listeners who came from Teaching & Spoken Word stations have listened to at least one podcast from a Christian radio ministry within the past week. But only about one-third of listeners who came from CCM stations have done the same. The prevalence of listening to online, on-demand programming among Teaching Station listeners is massive.

And it makes sense. These are listeners who have specifically chosen long-form Teaching. If they hear it on the radio, they are likely to either merge in the middle of the program . . . or they are likely to have to leave before the program ends. Either way, it would seem to be the kind of programming that is tailor-made for on-demand consumption. And two-thirds of our respondents have already made that choice.

Among the folks in the survey, almost everyone indicated Christian radio – FM or AM – listening. For each of the three formats, 96% or more of the respondents indicated recent listening to the station that sent them the survey. So, it would appear these online choices are in addition to, not instead of, their radio listening.

A second headline: It appears there’s a lot of “backing and forthing” – friends who listen to the radio and to podcasts.

Strategizing podcasting success is #1 on our list as a topic of discussion as we head into NRB in a few weeks. We’re setting meetings now and would love to get together if you’ll be there in Nashville. Just REACH OUT to us and we’ll set a time either there or via Zoom, when you’re ready!

November 2022: Top Five On-Air Topics for CCM Listeners

SPIRITUAL ENCOURAGEMENT!

…plus the next five.

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