Every radio station has two groups of listeners. The first group is the those that listen NOW.

The second group is those who will listen THEN.

When THEN arrives your station will have many, many more listeners than it does now. Unless you consider only those you have NOW.

The gravitational pull for every radio station, business, or ministry is to be FOR the people you have NOW. You start to filter through “Oh, we’ve got to keep the people happy.”

Andy Stanley says it this way:

“The gravitational pull is to insiders, not to people who aren’t here. And here’s the reason. The people who aren’t here, aren’t here. They never complain. They never complain about the music or the volume or anything else. There’s no squeaky wheel because they’re not squeaking because they don’t know anything to squeak about.

It’s common or it’s natural for someone in my position to simply cater to people who are here. But you didn’t come here because we cater to people who are already here. In fact, you come here because you’re an outsider.”

I’ve seen Christian music radio stations double their audience by simply considering the perspective of someone who tunes in for the first time. As simple and easy as that sounds it is a paradigm shift that can only happen if station leadership requires it.

If your station isn’t growing, now you know why.