With our 2021 Finney Media Why Listen?® Survey, we reached almost 11,000 respondents from three different formats: Music and Teaching (Hybrid) stations, all-Teaching stations and programs and all-Music stations. We learned plenty about why they listen…and why they leave.
One of our big questions was about tune-outs. These are things your listener perceives you might do that would cause her to tune away or turn off the radio. These are the Top Five Tune-outs from the respondents who came from Hybrid stations and Teaching stations/programs. The percentages are the total of “very likely to turn off” and “somewhat likely to turn off”:
Hybrid
| 1. They have a negative, angry, judgmental tone | 77% |
| 2. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in | 50% |
| 3. They play commercials | 46% |
| 4. An announcer talks too much | 43% |
| 5. They play songs I’m tired of | 33% |
Teaching
| 1. They have a negative, angry, judgmental tone | 68% |
| 2. They talk about a topic I’m not interested in | 54% |
| 3. They play commercials | 48% |
| 4. An announcer talks too much | 46% |
| 5. They play songs I’m tired of | 38% |
Last month, we focused on the no. 1 tune-out. These included negative, angry, judgmental tone and if you want listeners to stick with you, have a gentler, calmer approach to presenting the Gospel.
This month, we’re focused on the no. 2 tuneout. Over half of our respondents in both formats, indicated they were very likely or somewhat likely to leave if the station or program was on a topic they weren’t interested in.
Let’s take our imagination out of Christian radio for a moment. Let’s say you’re a Chicago sports fan and you’re listening to Chicago sports-talk radio. I’m writing this column in September. The no. 1 topic likely right now is Chicago Bears football. Cubs baseball, even though they’re out of the playoff race, is likely second most interesting. White Sox baseball is likely third most interesting (apologies to my friends who are Sox fans). Everything else (Bulls, Blackhawks, etc.) just aren’t all that interesting. If our sports-talk host has somehow landed on DePaul Men’s Basketball this evening and is talking about them because our caller asked a question about it, we’re dead with listeners. Very few people care. You can just hear the listeners leaving!
It’s a similar challenge with Christian radio. If your listener shows up and you’re talking about something she doesn’t care about, there’s a good chance she’ll leave. Is it possible to be perfect on this with every listener every time? No.
But you can certainly start here by:
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- Being more aware of what she is interested in, which you can do by asking her.
- Then by increasing your focus on the topics she is interested in.
- Followed by decreasing your focus on the topics she isn’t interested in.
With as big a tune-out as uninteresting topics are, and with as much channel choices listeners have now, getting this right is crucial.
We have an idea which topics these are and would love to discuss more if you’re interested. Visit our CONTACT US page to get connected.
