The 2025 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey gathered data from more than 11,000 Christian radio respondents from three different formats: Music stations, Music and Teaching stations, and Teaching stations and programs. The findings are fascinating!
We presented respondents with 16 different reasons they might listen to their Christian radio station. Two months ago, we looked at the TOP FIVE MAIN REASONS CCM LISTENERS LISTEN. And, last month, the BOTTOM FIVE MAIN REASONS – Reasons no. 12 through no. 16. This month, we present the Top Five Reasons broken out by Gender and Age. The numbers are the percentage of respondents who indicated that’s a Main Reason they listen:
Younger Women (Ages 54 and under) |
Older Women (Ages 55+) |
| 1. It helps you worship God | 93% | 1. You like worshipful Christian music | 95% | |
| 2. You like worshipful Christian music | 92% | 2. It helps you worship God | 93% | |
| 3. You want to be encouraged | 82% | 3. You want to be encouraged | 85% | |
| 4. It’s safe for you and your family | 77% | 4. It helps you grow spiritually | 80% | |
| 5. It helps you grow spiritually | 76% | 5. Get away from negativity | 68% |
Younger Men (Ages 54 and under) |
Older Men (Ages 55+) |
| 1. It helps you worship God | 89% | 1. You like worshipful Christian music | 92% | |
| 2. You like worshipful Christian music | 88% | 2. It helps you worship God | 86% | |
| 3. You want to be encouraged | 74% | 3. You want to be encouraged | 73% | |
| 4. It’s safe for you and your family | 71% | 4. It helps you grow spiritually | 70% | |
| 5. It helps you grow spiritually | 70% | 5. It’s safe for you and your family | 61% | |
| 5. Get away from negativity | 61% |
Keep in mind that the respondents to our survey come from station databases – the most loyal, most interested, likely P1 superfans. Both genders and age groups give the highest marks to worshipful Christian music and help with worshipping God throughout the day – in numbers higher in all four demo breakouts than the next closest reason – encouragement. Two headlines out of this:
- Worship music and worship content score very high among P1’s. These days, the highest rated CCM stations are more intentional about worshipful content. They are leaning more spiritual.
- You could boil down the top reasons to two words – Spiritual Encouragement. If we’re doing breaks that are neither spiritual nor encouraging or both, why? And what might change if you did?
Coming next month: From the 2025 Why Listen? Survey, we presented our respondents with a number of topics we might talk about on the air. We’ll show you the Top Five Show Topics.
