On last week’s show I asked… so if radio stations in our format all begin with the same general stack of tools (music, deejays, etc.), why are most stations ordinary while only a few are transformational?

Last week I shared how my friend Joe Battaglia and I partnered with Ken Blanchard, author of the best-selling “One Minute Manager” series, to develop the national radio campaign for “Lead Like Jesus.” As we brainstormed ideas, Ken shared his experience of training the ballpark staff of the Padres’ Petco Park in San Diego.

They began with the end in mind:

What do we want fans to say when they are leaving the ballpark?

After several hours of discussion, it was transformed to this specific idea…

“I want to come back and I want to bring a friend.”

That one sentence crystalized their definition of success. The staff then went to work on creating a ballpark experience that could influence the conversation toward that response.

We radio folks are somewhat good at thinking about WHAT we do but far less good in thinking WHY we do it. Perhaps we should ask…

“What do we want our listeners to say when they listen?”

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Every Christian music radio station starts with the same set of tools. There is a stack of tunes, access to a varied list of air talent, some highly trained and some just sticking their heads out of the egg, a laundry list of promotions, and marketing resources ranging from billboards and bumper stickers all over town to your city’s best-kept secret.

So, if we all start with the same set of tools, what makes some stations ordinary while others are transformational?

In my almost 50 years of broadcasting (hey, I started when I was a wee little child) one of the things that has made our format my all-time favorite to program is that every day it has the potential to be transformational. We certainly know that is true from a spiritual perspective in the remarkable music we play and the messages that are crafted to touch the soul, but there is another way our format can be transformational.

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As your listeners and your town get back to living post-pandemic how is that being reflected on your radio station? “Live and local” is often cited by many in our industry as a panacea for what’s ailing us. While there is nothing wrong with giving time checks and pronouncing the street names correctly, it doesn’t have the transformative power of creating shared community.

“Content that is perceived as helpful always addresses a felt need. Content that doesn’t address a felt need is perceive as irrelevant. Notice I said perceived. It may be the most relevant information an audience has ever heard. But if an audience doesn’t understand how content interfaces with their lives, it’s just not all that interesting.”

Andy Stanley, “Deep and Wide”

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245 years ago our country was born with a Declaration of Independence and a subsequent Bill of Rights for all citizens for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But as Believers, we know that with those rights comes responsibility.

Your radio station has the right to do anything you want. Even the right to be mediocre if you so choose.

Many Christian stations are just that … a result of a mishmash programming schedule comprised largely by songs people don’t know by artists they’ve never heard of.

But with every right comes a responsibility.

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Our currency is TIME. We measure time, we sell time. Some of us veterans remember when we “back-timed.” We covet TIME SPENT LISTENING.

We also WASTE time.

In PPM lingo time is called “listening occasions.” There are numerous things about PPM we can’t control (most importantly who wears a meter), but we can hopefully minimize missed opportunities to create listening occasions.

But we tend to grade on the curve when we say…

It’s not all THAT bad.

It probably won’t hurt us.

Nobody will notice.

Not many people are listening on the weekend/nights/overnights/holidays.

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“You can do anything… once”

I often heard those words from my dad’s booming voice. In part an acknowledgment of an adolescent’s likely choices; another part about the consequences facing that pimpled-faced teenager.

Those words served as a life lesson of accountability. But, you know what? Those words were also true. I COULD do anything… once.

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At church yesterday I sat next to Warren. Warren is 50 years old and had never been to our church. In fact, Warren had never been to church.

I learned that Warren is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic and now has sclerosis of the liver. He was sitting next to his mother Maggie who had prayed for him for many, many years. Maggie held Warren’s hand like I imagined she did when he was a little boy.

Sitting next to Warren gave me a fresh perspective of a place so very familiar to me for sixteen years. I am on the inside getting a glimpse of what it looks like from the outside.

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My daddy was a great story teller. Family gatherings almost always ended up in the living room with one of us kids begging, “Dad, tell the one about…” He loved family history and those stories shared over the decades among aunts, uncles, cousins and grandchildren helped us to realize how we are all connected and a part of the same story. Dad also said with a twinkle in his eye, “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story,” so we knew we had to pay attention in case something about the story had changed!

No one in our format seems to openly doubt the power of a story, but I’m surprised how few talent tell stories on the air… much less do it well. It seems that we give lip service to story and then go about our business sharing data or talking about something on Facebook, the ultimate lazy man’s show prep.

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Memorial Day is often considered the official kick off of summer. But more importantly it is a time set aside to remember those who gave their lives for our country.

This time of remembrance is a good time for us to reflect on how we’d like our radio stations to be remembered.

We get a glimpse of this each year as we compile the Station of the Year entry. It forces us to stop our day-to-day busyness and ponder the most noteworthy things of the preceding twelve months. We discover some things stand out, other things are vapor in the wind.

When people talk about your radio station…

do they speak of the 25-minute music sweeps with fewer commercials, or do they talk about how you help people help people?

Do they talk about how Jack and Jill read “This day in history” from Twitter every morning at 7:20, or that your station cheers on moms and dads for the most important commitment they’ll ever make – raising good kids?

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As wonderful as it sometimes can be, our format tends to default to sameness. Songs can sound alike. Promotions can sound instructive rather than inspiration. At its worst, it can sound like…

…nice Christian people talking to nice Christian people about nice Christian things.

Well, that may be nice, but it doesn’t make for compelling programming.

You’ve probably heard me say…

There is no format as compelling when done well… and no format as uncompelling when done poorly.

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