In just a few weeks many Christian music radio stations across the country will be turning their format upside down and going all-Christmas.

E-gads! What’s with that?

for King & Country will give way to Nat King Cole, Plumb is swapped for Bing, and Michael W. Smith is replaced by, well, Michael W. Smith.

And we all understand why. To attract more listeners.

Or, to put it another way, for our stations to be more accepted.

Acceptance is a powerful idea. It’s often the basis for our friendships, the groups we hang out with, and even the church we go to.

The opposite is also true. Lack of acceptance is often what divides political parties, causes people to go to court, and fractures families and friendships.

Andy Stanley recently shared the idea that acceptance lowers resistance. It is the groups that accept you that often have the greatest influence, whether your college fraternity, your Harley rider’s club, or your small group at church.

Notice the sequence – acceptance happens before influence. You probably didn’t have your first cigarette alone, Andy Stanley observes. It was being with friends, those that accepted you, that lowered your resistance and allowed their ideas or behaviors a foot in the door. Every parent instinctively knows this to be true, which is why we’re so concerned about who our kids hang around with.

So if acceptance leads to influence (positive or negative), and Christian music stations exist to have greater influence, then it seems to me that figuring out how to build acceptance into your station would be a pretty important deal.

It’s funny.  We do it every day in real conversations with real people, but we often forget it on our stations.

There are two critical milestones in the development of a successful radio station; when some one tunes to your station for the first time, and when they become a fan.

Simply stated, the distance between those two points determines how quickly your station will grow.

Common ground is the rocket fuel that drives that connection.

In a format where the biggest barrier for growth is unfamiliar songs by unknown artists creating familiarity is crucial.  Listen to your station for thirty minutes and count the number of times a new listener would hear common ground.

Common ground is the difference between sitting silently for hours on an airplane next to a stranger, and meeting a new friend who’s starting a medical company in the very field that is my wife’s life long dream.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The man who agrees with us that some important question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend.  He need not agree with us about the answer.”

My brilliant friend Tommy Kramer wraps that idea in childlike innocence…

“You like bubble game?  I like bubble gum, too.   Can we be friends?”

It is not common sense to warn someone about using common sense.  But that, my friends, is the very point.

Successful principles of business, leadership, programming, or ministry aren’t common.  They are the exception.  Otherwise, all businesses would be successful, there would be no leadership challenges, churches would be full every week, all radio stations would have high ratings and we’d all have dated the sexiest girl in school.  (Sorry, just threw in sex to keep you interested.)There are 11,000 business books published each year.  I looked it up.  If these principles were merely common sense there would not be the demand for these lessons learned.

At first glance successful principles can seem out of whack or counter-intuitive.

Leading is really about serving.

The more you try to impress someone, the less they will like you.

The more you learn, the less you know. The more you learn about something, the more your horizons broaden and you see the limits of your own understanding.

Hundreds of general managers and program directors around the planet read these Frost Advisories each week, I’m told.  Today you will likely face a decision about your radio station where it would make sense to use common sense.  Before you react, consider:

“We are quick to jump to conclusions because we give too much weight to the information that is right in front of us, while failing to consider the information that’s just offstage.   It’s called ‘the spotlight effect.’   The spotlight only lights one spot.  Everything outside it is obscured.  When we begin to shift the spotlight from side to side the situation starts to look very different.   And that, in essence, is the core difficulty in decision making.   What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision, but we won’t always remember to shift the light.   Sometimes, in fact, we’ll forget there’s a spotlight at all, dwelling so long in the tiny circle of light that we forget there’s a broader landscape beyond it.” – Chip and Dan Heath, “Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work”

It’s ironic, isn’t it?

In a format that is all about belief, few stations ever share what they believe.

Not a doctrinal statement, but a brand position. A flag in ground. A line in the sand. A reason to be on the air.

Chick-fil-A has one. Proof? Your money is no good there on Sunday.

Apple. Proof? So easy there are no instructions.

Coca-Cola. BMW. Harley-Davidson, my favorite example that I talk every time I’m asking to speak.

Even people that don’t own a Harley want to be identified with the brand. We can’t even get our own listeners to put a bumper sticker on their car.

In his TED talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, Simon Sinek says,

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy WHY you do it. If you don’t know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do?……

Dr. King wasn’t the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn’t the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. He didn’t go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed.

‘I believe, I believe, I believe,’ he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the right time to hear him speak.

How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. And it wasn’t about black versus white: 25 percent of the audience was white. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. And, by the way, he gave the ‘I have a dream’ speech, not the ‘I have a plan’ speech.”

Ratings are up! What have we done right?

Ratings are down! What do we change?

Evaluating your programming based upon the tiny sample size in the PPM ratings is a slippery slope. I’ve seen a station lose 100,000 cume in a week and go up in share. I’ve seen four meters from a family away for a long weekend cut a station’s share in half.

So, how do we know what to do when the ratings come in?

I suggest that we can learn something about programming our radio stations by looking at our faith journey.

As Christians we search for guidance through the truth of the Word and wise counsel.

“Thy word is truth” (John 17:17b)

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16

I realize its a bit wacky to put the Bible and market research in the same sentence, but I think its fair to say that research is the most objective reference point in evaluating whether your station’s programming is on track.

It can show you the strengths and weaknesses of your station, the overall appeal of your format, and what messaging will be meaningful to your fans and conducive to attracting new listeners. This valuable resource can also uncover the strength of personalities, the relative importance of features or service elements, and whether the staff should get free coffee.

While we all love to tinker it is important not to overreact to changes in the behavior of a few panelists in the weekly or monthly ratings. If there’s a sudden burp on the PPM radar go back to What We Know to Be True. Objectivity is found only in market or music research, not the comments of the sales manager’s cousin or the latest complaint from a listener.

As an example:

Every year I’m involved in discussions about the validity of all-Christmas music programming, an often polarizing programming tactic where smart people can disagree. While I’ve made recommendations on both sides of the argument depending upon the station’s goals and competitive dynamics, in a recent discussion I went back to What We Know to Be True. That station’s market research revealed that 80% of their listeners said they would listen all or most of the time to a station that played all Christmas music. In other words, if they didn’t do it their own listeners would likely tune somewhere else for it.

That one piece of research made their decision obvious. Without it we might still be talking about how Aunt Minnie doesn’t like Burl Ives.

Broad generalizations regarding ratings are not very helpful in evaluating the appeal of your station’s programming. Some are tinkerers, constant REACTORS insisting that three songs should be dropped from the playlist because the latest PPM numbers were cut in half in Women 45-54. On Saturday. Others are passive observers where a drop of 100,000 weekly cume results in not even a glance up from their navel gazing.

In my travels I’m fortunate to rub elbows with some very bright and talented people at radio stations you’ve probably heard of. Their station’s ratings performance is a result of their understanding the best business practices of success, focusing their efforts on the things that really matter, and bringing in resources that extend beyond the talents inside the building.

Ratings research is one of those resources. After many years of studying electronic measurement via the Purple People Meter (PPM) methodology we have learned some characteristics of successful stations.

50% of your weekly cume are your P1s (first preference or fans). They can contribute over 80% of your average quarter hours.
Your station’s PPM ratings will rise and fall based on the behavior of your P1s (fans).

Getting your P1s to give your station one more day of listening will mean a great deal to improve your PPM performance. Just one more listening occasion on an extra day will increase your cume and average quarter horses.

PPM performance is ALL ABOUT who gets the meters. That is something for which we have no control. For Christian music stations, please note that Nielsen doesn’t ask, doesn’t tabulate, doesn’t care which meter holders are Christians. God cares, but Nielsen doesn’t.

Rather than shrugging our shoulders and blaming the Nielsen gods for the erratic nature of ratings performance (particularly in Weeklies), we should focus on the things we can control. It’s deeper than up is good and down is bad.

We will have fans (P1s – first preference listeners) only if we create a radio experience that is worthy of having fans in the first place.

In my other life I do some announcing for a baseball team called the St. Louis Cardinals. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. Despite being in only the 22nd largest metro area, the St. Louis Cardinals ranked 2nd in attendance last year averaging over 41,602 fans per game. That’s more than the San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Angels, New York Mets, or Detroit Tigers, teams from much larger cities. The Cardinals don’t create fans by focusing on 40,000 as a number, but by creating a baseball experience that is worthy of having 40,000 fans. Their are 18 sections under the heading “Fans” on the Cardinals’ website, including:

Fans First is an initiative to thank fans for their on-going support and unwavering loyalty for over a century of Cardinals baseball. We are putting our Fans First because YOU have helped make the Cardinals the most storied franchise in the National League, as well as making Busch Stadium truly “Baseball Heaven.”

For us in radio that means choosing only the most popular music, enhancing that music environment with meaningful content, and creating a brand that resonates with the listeners’ values and perspectives on life. And executing it with precision.

Here’s the deal: We achieve ratings only if we have enough measured cume (Nielsen world). We have enough cume only if we have enough listeners (real world). We have enough listeners in the real world only if we create a radio station that real people really listen to in their cars, in their homes, and where they work.

We don’t get the numbers by focusing on the numbers. We get the numbers by creating a radio station that people love!

Momentum is a waste of time!   

Momentum is the greatest opportunity for me to learn all year.

Those are polar opposite statements.   Both are true.   It’s your choice.

“Intelligent people are always eager and ready to learn.” Proverbs 18:15

We all know Fred.  He comes to Momentum every year to hang around with his friends, eat donuts with the new band Hercules and the Chicken Fat People, and brag about all the nifty things he’s doing at his 2.0 share radio station.

After Momentum Fred returns to his station and implements nothing he’s heard.   Sadly, Fred has decided that he already knows everything.

“When do you think most people stop learning?

Is it when we already know how to do something? Is it when we have some success under our belts? Is it when we imagine there’s nothing left to learn, no one knows something we don’t, or when we come to believe we know it all? Whenever it is, it’s too soon, and it’s too bad, because we’ve always got a lot to learn… no matter how much we already know.”  Mark Beeson

Here’s a suggestion:

This year at Momentum write down the 3 most important things you hear from each speaker or seminar. Prioritize these items into an action plan with specific dates when they will be integrated into your day to day activities.

That one suggestion could make the difference on whether you say Momentum was a waste of time or the greatest opportunity to learn all year.

“Do yourself a favor and learn all you can; then remember what you learn and you will prosper.” Proverbs 19:8

I have a new friend. His name is also John.

He’s like a baby chick sticking his head out of the egg when it comes to Christian music radio. After decades in mainstream radio he knows he doesn’t know the format, but he asks REALLY good questions.

Because he is so charged up about his own faith he asks me, “Why isn’t there more celebration?”. Gulp. Out of the mouth of babes.

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“Opinions are like noses”, the saying goes. “Everyone has one.”

I like her voice! She sounds nasal! He’s funny. He thinks he’s funny.

Subjective opinions are inevitable in an industry tethered to music and art. The question is… how do we keep subjectivity from driving our most important decisions, since subjectivity almost always results in the crankiest or highest ranking having their way.

A station group I visited recently shared with me remarkable stories of changed lives, impact in their community, and their vision to reach people far beyond the boundaries of their current signals.

However, in listening to their stations I heard none of these things. I literally heard the trivial (in the form of ‘trivia’) more than I heard stories that demonstrated what the stations stand for.

Successful stations understand and embrace what makes them meaningful and preferable. They then efficiently demonstrate those values in ways that resonate emotionally with their listeners.

Efficiency and meaningfulness are two sides of the same coin. One does not exclude the other. Successful stations develop disciplines for each.

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