Here’s a special post for my clients and friends in Christian radio….
Typically, there’s a distinction in that space between music and “teaching.”
We have “teaching programs” and sometimes refer to them as such on- and off-air.
But what if there’s no such thing as “teaching programs”?
What if, instead, there are only programs that happen to teach?
This is no small distinction.
Do I, for example, seek a show out because it is a “teaching program”? Or do I seek it out because it’s Focus on the Family with Jim Daly?
In other words, what’s the magnet? The industry category the show happens to fall into or the brand itself and my relationship to it and its host?
And isn’t this even more true for those shows which I’m not familiar with? After all, radio shows are “experience brands,” meaning they must be sampled over time to be appreciated. Do different teaching programs really deserve to be lumped into one category? Are they really that redundant? Are they at all redundant? I don’t think so.
Ask yourself: Do you seek out a “teaching show” or a specific show with a specific host – one that may (or may not) also “teach”?
The teaching is in the ear of the student.
P.S. If you commercial stations are thinking this also might be true of “Talk,” you’re right. There’s no such thing as “Talk” either.