For the last several weeks I’ve been making a down-right nuisance of myself by bringing out into the open the top 10 reasons radio stations aren’t successful. It’s remarkable the response I’ve received! “How’d you know?”, “You must have been eavesdropping on some of our meetings!”

Here’s #3 on the countdown:

Many general managers, program directors and board of directors simply don’t understand what makes the format successful in the first place.

Consider this:

Of the 1,075 Christian radio stations in the USA, only half a dozen have at least 400,000 listeners. (There are 17 stations in Seattle alone that have at least that). I reckon’ less than twice that rank in the top five in their market.

While there are certainly many ways to define success, if one views the format as just a bunch of Christian songs by a bunch of Christian singers with a bunch of Christian disc jockeys saying a bunch of Christian stuff they won’t have many listeners.

To be really successful a station must understand a bigger idea that transcends the nuts and bolts of most programming conversations.

People don’t listen primarily because of who you are; they listen because of who they are!

When you understand that, the rest is just details.*

(*There’s lots and lots and lots to the details, but I really needed a pithy ending!)