RELENTLESS RADIO

 

Author:	Jerry Williams
Published:	September, 1998

 

It's time for the Fall Book! Our mainstream counterparts have been conducting research, tightening their libraries, tweaking their clocks, nailing down promotions and marketing details, beefing up their morning shows, and strategically evaluating the competition in anticipation of September 24. Are we as ready as they are? Do we care? Or are there still those among us who say, "We don't care about the numbers, we're only interested in ministry."? It is the contention of RELENTLESS RADIO that if you are indeed interested in ministry, if that is your main concern and the measure of your station's success (as I hope it is for all Christian radio), then you must be concerned about ratings. This is a matter of stewardship. Whatever market we serve, we have been given the potential of reaching every person living and traveling into our coverage area. Every one of them. Realistically, not every one of those people are likely to become our P1 listeners. But that does not excuse us from doing all we can to reach them, making them aware of us, and trying to attract them to tune in and listen more often and for longer periods of time. In this matter of stewardship, the ratings are an invaluable tool for measuring our effectiveness. We can say, "We have to impact more people with the gospel in the afternoons." Or, "We have to get the afternoon numbers up." For Christian radio, those statements should mean the same thing. But too often we are unaware not only of the ratings themselves, but also of how to effectively gain listeners, and thereby increase ratings and impact more lives with our message. And that, after all, is why we do what we do, isn't it? Our purpose must be to impact lives, whether by encouraging the body or providing a light to the lost, or some combination of the two. Too often though, Christian radio is like the servant who, upon being entrusted with one talent (or bag of money, depending upon your translation) quickly went and buried it in the ground, for fear of losing it. When the master came back it was the servant who had doubled his money who was praised, while the servant who didn't increase what he was entrusted with had even that small portion taken from him. You've heard some of us, haven't you, who seemingly take a sort of pride in just how small their numbers are, or that they don't know nor do they care what their ratings are. "We're touching peoples' lives with the gospel." they might say. And while that very probably is true, I have a couple of questions. How many are you failing to reach, and what can you do to reach even more? Would you be able to reach as many through another medium, say a bullhorn on a busy street corner downtown? I know of several stations that would probably reach just as many people that way. All I'm trying to suggest here is that we have been given a marvelous opportunity and incredible potential for building the kingdom of God. That's our real business, radio is just our method. But to be the best stewards we can be, we need to fully understand how to utilize and take advantage of that method. And an understanding and appreciation of the ratings is crucial to our success. If you are interested in how your station stacks up in the ratings, we've included some information for you below; the schedule of the remaining Arbitron ratings periods through 1999, and a glossary of terms that will come in handy when trying to decipher all those numbers. If you'd like to find out more, just visit the Arbitron website.

 

copyright 1998-2004 RELENTLESS COMMUNICATIONS

Recommend RELENTLESS RADIO