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.

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?

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.

I wanted to play the guitar since the first time I heard James Taylor when I was 14. My first was a twelve-string that Jimmy Osteen’s mother sold for $15. Looking back on it I wonder how Jimmy felt about that.

In the many decades since I’ve played the guitar with Tommy Kramer, Dan Heidt, Kenny Parsons, Ralph Underwood, and Wally Pierce. Not coincidentally each has a special place in my life. (I suppose the same could be said for other musical instruments but frankly I can’t imagine such a bond between a couple of guys who puff out their cheeks playing the Sousaphone).

I heard someone play the violin this morning in church. I love the violin, but for a different reason than you might think. I love the violin because my mother loved the violin.

“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is if they are showing you the way.”

Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz“

It’s my guess that almost everything you love is because someone else loved it first. Whether it’s going to the ballgame with dad, or learning how to make your mom’s apple pie, or the family gin rummy game after dinner.

These are interesting times.

I can’t recall a time where our country was more polarized. Whether it’s politics, race relations, face masks or where your elderly mother can get the vaccine, it seems like we’re regularly ducking for cover. Even the MLB All-Star game is controversial, and that is mom and apple pie stuff.

What in the name of Dr. Fauci is going on?

So, how do we stay relevant in our mission while also handling the inevitable complaints?

When we hear criticism about our station we often react in a way that is absolute. There is a complaint about song and we yank it from the playlist. Someone criticizes a comment from a deejay and we make her write “I will not try to be relevant” on the blackboard a hundred times. A general manager once told me he had so over-reacted to every complaint that his station had little worth listening to anymore.

Consider this.

Rather than react in absolutes where SOMETHING MUST BE DONE RIGHT THIS MINUTE, consider the complaint as if a customer in a restaurant had just asked for more salt. They are simply telling you how they would like prefer their food; not anyone else’s food – THEIR food. Even with a politically charged topic they are really just sharing how they see things, not suggesting that you should go out of business.

We added a new jingle package and our ratings went up!

We ran that new promotion and our ratings went down.

I know of a general manager that wanted to change the shifts of the deejays based upon weekly or monthly ratings. I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP, as Dave Barry would say.

Our minds crave simplicity. We crave the Silver Bullet.

“People are drawn to black and white opinions because they are simple, not because they are true. Truth demands serious effort and thought.”

Donald Miller

Just this week I found out a friend’s middle name is the same as my first name. But wait… wait… there’s more!

We also discovered that my middle name is the same as his first name. We’ve known and worked together for most of ten years and we never knew.

How do your listeners get a sense that your station has lots of listeners? Because they hear lots of listeners. It’s like an audio version of a crowd shot.

Trust me. I’m going somewhere with this.

In their book “Made to Stick,” Chip and Dan Heath share the story of a newspaper with a remarkable 100% circulation rate: everyone in his small town reads it. The publisher’s country wisdom was simple: “Names, Names, Names,” reasoning that people read his newspaper because they wanted to see their own names (or someone else’s).

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that the church is known more for what it is against than what it is for.

“A business is no longer what it tells customers it is. A business is what customers tell other customers it is.”

In his book “Know What You’re For,” Jeff Henderson recommends that you consider the gap between these two questions:

1. What do you want to be known for?
2. What are you known for?

The gap between the two answers will illuminate how your station moves from a transactional relationship with your listeners to one that is more relational.

They say there are more “religious” radio stations than any other format category. They also say those religious stations have fewer listeners than any other. Having worked in the format for more than twenty years now I’ve believe the reason is fairly obvious.

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

A growth strategy is one that incorporates big picture concepts such as:

• Why does the radio station exist?
• Who are our listeners?
• What do they desire and expect from our station?
• Who and where are other people like them?