Religious being done by any major companies, commercially?

[carolinaradio]

Just wondering how many Christian music stations are around that are owned by the "big" companies (not Salem....CC, Citadel, Cumulus, etc) and aren't listener supported?  How do they do/sound?  Any successes?

I was curious because here in Greenville, SC, CC has attempted a "Christian top-40" format since late 2007.  It hasn't done well, the ratings aren't near what they were prior to the flip as a rock station.  Then again, it's entirely voicetracked and is run from the bottom of a broom closet. http://www.shine967.com
Entercom attempted a CCM/Country hybrid here for several years, but killed it off.  Was never a big success.

I know CC and many other companies have Urban Gospel, but not sure about CCM.  As of now, 96.7 in Greenville is the only CCM station I am aware of that they are running.

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

My experience on this topic is old, ancient, outdated!  The original commercial religion stations were more like the Salem preach-and-teach stations of today.  Blocks of time sold to national religious broadcasting operations, and a few local churches.  The bread and butter back then (late 1960s) was selling time for such programs.  The market for selling commercial announcements (spots) was very limited.

I am on the outside looking in these days,  but the focus has moved to CCM stations where the revenue needs to be commercial announcements and a block of preaching-and-teaching would likely be a ratings killer.  In a market where there is only one CCM station,  it appears to be a business model that can work.  Today there seems to be a bazillion non-commercial satellite, repeaters, satellators and LPFMs doing some kind of religious programming to the point it becomes very difficult for a commercial station operated by one of the major corporations to get enough traction in survey numbers, and in the perception of local merchants, to generate enough sales.

I didn't remain in Christian broadcasting because I found the straight-jacket uncomfortable.  We had a self imposed rule that the only music we would play had to be by artists who were full-time Christian performers.  (No country music or pop music folks doing an album of their Christian Favorites.)  All station personnel had to be bona-fide participants in a church that met the specifications set down by listeners and buyers of commercial announcements.  (You couldn't make it on the street selling if you were not active in a church yourself,  and it better not be a LIBERAL church.)

CCM broadcasting today seems to want to be accepted as just one more music format.  I don't know if that is a viable business model today or not. 

[Alan McCall]

My experience is somewhat similar to Goat Rodeo's. When I started in Christian radio in 1983, the music shows consisted mostly of the blocks of time that were left unsold. 15 minutes here and there..and hour of two here and there..Later things improved and we got a real morning and afternoon drive time show. When it was the only station in town, it did fairly well.

I think the proliferation of satellite services, translators and such has made many markets overradioed in the Christian genre. My last full-time gig ended because the station, an AM daytimer, couldn't sustain itself against all the signals coming in..about 7 of them. That station runs EWTN but no one knows it's there, including the Catholics.

I'm familiar with the Entercom Christian/country hybrid (The Walk) and actually use their core playlist as the basis for my Internet station now. It's not for everyone, but it gets rid of the straight-jacket Goat talked about and gets listeners who are not necessarily Christian. I have classic country in the mix, which Entercom did not.

[MightyFrenchman]

I didn't remain in Christian broadcasting because I found the straight-jacket uncomfortable.  We had a self imposed rule that the only music we would play had to be by artists who were full-time Christian performers.  (No country music or pop music folks doing an album of their Christian Favorites.)  All station personnel had to be bona-fide participants in a church that met the specifications set down by listeners and buyers of commercial announcements.  (You couldn't make it on the street selling if you were not active in a church yourself,  and it better not be a LIBERAL church.)

You have an interesting post name. Some time read the parable about the sheep and the goats and see if you really want to be a goat when Jesus returns. In the meantime...as far as your station only playing music by full-time Christian performers - that's a great rule.  It's called playing music by artists who walk the talk. To be a participant in church isn't any station's rule, it's a command in Scripture - check out Hebrews 10:25. It's a part of "walking the talk". And if you're going to go to a liberal church that doesn't believe the basics of the Christian faith, why bother to go to church? Why bother to work at a Christian radio station in the first place? Generally speaking, the people who listen to CCM radio are evangelical Christians, that is, Bible-believing Christians. If you find that uncomfortable for whatever reason, work somewhere else like you chose to do but don't whine about it here.

[carolinaradio]

Interesting insight guys!

As for the possible success without competition - that could be one of the issues here.  In Greenville, SC, we have WLFJ His Radio (the main, heritage CCM station), 106.9 The Light (Rev. Graham's station, CCM with some teaching), BBN affiliate, a Southern Gospel station, BJU's classical/beautiful music/preaching station, and a group of LPFM's carrying CCM targeted at younger listeners.

All of these stations are firmly rooted in the area, and are local.  The only commercial one is the BJU one, and I'm sure they are propped up financially by the university.  So, obviously, Clear Channel's attempt (and Entercom's previous one) on a class A FM is sort of left out of the mix.  They run very few 'high-price' sounding commercials and I hear a lot of PSAs when I have listened.  And, of course, knowing Clear Channel there is no local effort made.  I'm thinking this one will be a goner pretty soon.

So no known Clear Channel religious stations around (other than black gospel)?

[xmusicmatt]

All of these stations are firmly rooted in the area, and are local.  The only commercial one is the BJU one, and I'm sure they are propped up financially by the university.  So, obviously, Clear Channel's attempt (and Entercom's previous one) on a class A FM is sort of left out of the mix.  They run very few 'high-price' sounding commercials and I hear a lot of PSAs when I have listened.  And, of course, knowing Clear Channel there is no local effort made.  I'm thinking this one will be a goner pretty soon.

So no known Clear Channel religious stations around (other than black gospel)?

I think you hit a good point on the local bit.   Even K-Love and Air1 at least have #s and you can do some interaction..  Christians like that personal connection, even if its tracked, they want to relate to the person onair and in return the on air person need to relate to the listener.  You can't get that out of a Selector playlist on a Nexgen system that's locked in a closet with no local dj or even voicetracks.   Clear channel would be smart to pick up Way FM's CHRSN format at least there would be the 'interaction' of the air talent with the listener.

Clear Channel is doing some CCM on 102.3 in Austin Texas if I remember right..

http://www.theriver1023.com/

[Silkie]

Just be careful about taking in everything you hear, which is not to say that there is anything wrong with "commercial" religious stations.  There are all kinds of people out there who will tell you what religious schools they went to and everything else, but it doesn't mean they have an ounce of God in themselves.  To the contrary, some of them have the blackest, trashiest souls you would never even want to imagine.  Broadcasting it to hide behind or to use even as an obscenity might come across as innocent enough, but it's trouble.

Just take care what you let in.  Thank you.

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You have an interesting post name. Some time read the parable about the sheep and the goats and see if you really want to be a goat when Jesus returns. In the meantime...as far as your station only playing music by full-time Christian performers - that's a great rule.  It's called playing music by artists who walk the talk. To be a participant in church isn't any station's rule, it's a command in Scripture - check out Hebrews 10:25. It's a part of "walking the talk". And if you're going to go to a liberal church that doesn't believe the basics of the Christian faith, why bother to go to church? Why bother to work at a Christian radio station in the first place? Generally speaking, the people who listen to CCM radio are evangelical Christians, that is, Bible-believing Christians. If you find that uncomfortable for whatever reason, work somewhere else like you chose to do but don't whine about it here.

You make some interesting points,  some of which if we try to discuss here the Board Editor would likely toss into the penalty-box  known as Take It Outside.

Go to the dictionary and look up "goat rodeo"....   ask people around you what their understanding of a "goat rodeo" is.   I do not bill my self as a GOAT which is what some people do when they want to shorten the name.  (My friend Alan McCall did that in the previous message,  and I am fine with that.)  The whole three word pseudonym is a self depreciating term indicating that I function like a "rodeo clown" and I am so simple that I can only get work at the mythical Goat Rodeo rather than a legitimate rodeo.  If you're going to make a religious assessment of "Goat Rodeo Cowboy"  you need to start all over with a new frame of mind.  By the way,  there are a number of places in the Bible where the message is delivered by and has a character involved that is the New Testament version of a Goat Rodeo Cowboy. 

Getting back to the policy of some radio stations,  it turns out that some musicians who made the cut as "performers of Christian music only" turned out to be "goats" in the sense you tried to hang it on me.  Back in the 1960s I interviewed that gentleman from Louisiana who was a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and he presented me with one of his albums before he left the station.  He was preaching a revival in a small AOG church near Speedway Indiana that was pastored by the brother-in-law of my salesman-announcer.  Jimmy WAS NOT a known personality around the country at that time.  He only performed Christian music, so we wore his album out.  Later on he turned out to be a bit of a goat didn't he.  There are some secular singers who from time to time do A Christian collection of music who have never cheated on their wives.  But they can't be allowed on a Christian station?  Whatever.

One last note about that station and it's clientele and it's listeners.  I had preachers who bought time on that station who got down on their knees in my office one day and prayed for me because I was one of those heathen Southern Baptists.  There are some things in life that do not compute.  I would say God expects us to whine about them!  It's what preachers do....  along with some of us who are not set aside for that office of the church.

[carolinaradio]

I think you hit a good point on the local bit.   Even K-Love and Air1 at least have #s and you can do some interaction..  Christians like that personal connection, even if its tracked, they want to relate to the person onair and in return the on air person need to relate to the listener.  You can't get that out of a Selector playlist on a Nexgen system that's locked in a closet with no local dj or even voicetracks.   Clear channel would be smart to pick up Way FM's CHRSN format at least there would be the 'interaction' of the air talent with the listener.

Clear Channel is doing some CCM on 102.3 in Austin Texas if I remember right..

http://www.theriver1023.com/

Yep.  His Radio WLFJ here is very interactive....they have on-air testimonies, a call-in line, very personal and they are always in the community.  106.9 The Light interacts also....why this CC station here is just run by a robot and they are running it like an AC station or anything else they would run.  I just don't think CCM can be done that way.  Maybe I'm just picky, I don't know, but Clear's attempt in Greenville as Shine 96 just sounds plastic and like they aren't really in it as a ministry.  You can see on their website that they don't even list DJs (there are some, although tracked) or their music even.  Sad, almost.

That Austin station looks pretty interesting.

[gr8oldies]

Wow, i guess that would mean I'm not a "real Christian" if I work for a secular-formatted station or have a secular job or career at all. I guess everyone has to be a full-time pastor. And sorry, I've known liberal Christians who are walking cloiser than screaming fundamentalist Bible thumpers. What's a "Bible believer" anyway, when so many competing groups claim to "believe every word exactly as written". Did God really say "OK, it's all written down, I'm going on vacation, if I ever have anything else to say to humanity it will only be to quote myself.". Is God really contained in that book?

To the radio topic, Radio One owns several black Gospel stations. Susquehanna once owned a station called "The Song" which one of our posters constantly complained about.