This week I’ve had the unique opportunity to introduce a program director to our format whose background is exclusively in mainstream radio. That was me 23 years ago.

If I only knew then what I know now.

“People are really not coming to see us as much as they are coming to see and hear what we represent to the audience.”

Carole King

Even New Coke had a longer lifespan than CNN+.

Fewer than 10,000 people were watching CNN+ daily. I reckon’ that’s less than your station’s daily cume if you’re in a good sized market.

“What you have to do is offer some original content, unique value or have a significantly important archive of content and CNN+ didn’t offer any of those things. These were total retreads of the same shows you could get for free featuring most of the same people and to the extent that they even had other kinds of documentary content most of those things you could get on other platforms. Just not interesting.”

Michael Moynihan/Matt Welch on The Megan Kelly Show

Okay. Let’s talk about what we can learn from the demise of CNN+.

The folks at Nielsen World Headquarters tell us there are more “religious” radio stations than any other format category. They also say those religious stations have fewer listeners than any other. Gulp!

Having been involved in the CCM format for more than twenty years, I suggest that there is something we can learn from Easter.

A radio station cannot grow unless it is designed to grow. And that requires a different kind of thinking. Strategic thinking.

A Samsung Galaxy S21 commercial made me think. Of all messages communicated not one centered on the features of a cell telephone. Wow! A commercial about a cell phone that never mentioned a cell phone.

Made for the epic in everyday.

Philip Yancey shares in his book “Vanishing Grace”:

“Mark Rutland whimsically recalls a survey in which…

Americans were asked what words they would most like to hear.

He predicted the first choice: ‘I love you.‘

Number two was ‘I forgive you.‘

The third choice took him by surprise: ‘Supper’s ready.‘”

It dawned on Rutland that these three statements provide a neat summary of the gospel story.”

Unlike other formats people, don’t tune to your radio station because of WHAT YOU ARE. They tune to you because of who THEY are.

After more than 20 years in the format, I’m used to people ignoring me when I share that idea. It doesn’t make sense to them. That’s because they can’t read the label from inside the bottle. And you, my friends, are inside the bottle.

I first loved baseball because my dad loved baseball. In fact, my first game ever was a really big deal – I got to see my baseball hero Mickey Mantle get the first hit in the very first indoor baseball game: at the Astrodome in Houston. My dad simply said, “You should see this.”

I love classical music because my mother was a professional violinist and shared her love for classical music. I loved watching the high school marching band because my daughter played her saxophone in it. I have even learned to bowl (not very well) because a dear friend loves bowling. In fact, he gave me my own bowling ball.

That question probably doesn’t mean what you think. I am not talking about the X’s and O’s that constitute the formatics of your station’s clock.

Let me explain.

“Imagine if you will that one hour never existed. No babies were born. No one died. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Rod Serling

It was an hour that never existed. We changed our clocks from 2am to 3am.

That hour doesn’t matter.

You wait through the first part of a boring movie. You hope it will get better.

You sit down at a restaurant. The waiter is slow to come over. Minutes tick by without giving your drink order. You hope it will get better.

I’m old enough to remember when COVID-19 was the headline of the day.

Then, two weeks to flatten the curve.

Then the vaccines. Then the vaccine mandates.

Then the Canadian truckers.

Now Russia invades the Ukraine.

So, in a format that promises to be positive, encouraging, uplifting, and lots of fun at parties… how do we talk about this noise without breaking our promise?

I could hear the sound of someone leaving a message on the answering machine in the next room. I couldn’t even understand the words she was saying but I could hear her tone. It was the tone of someone who was detached from the meaning of the very words she was saying. “Good afternoon. I’m calling on behalf of…”

There is a tone in someone’s voice when they don’t care about what they are saying. It’s the tone I hear from the flight attendants when they are instructing perfectly capable grown ups as to how to fasten their seat belts or that wearing face masks is mandatory. Even between bites and sips. Look around. No one is paying attention.

To fasten your seat belt, insert the metal fittings one into the other, and tighten by pulling on the loose end of the strap.