What's "Rare" About You?

So the Washington Post made the news for all the wrong reasons when they unloaded more than 300 journalists adding further signs of sad decline to what was once the legendary home of Watergate journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The Post has been bleeding subscribers, trust, credibility, and attention for many months now.

But you and lots of other folks may have missed what else happened on that fine winter morning.

That was the same morning the New York Times announced a strong fourth quarter, pulling in more than $800 million in revenue and adding 450,000 digital subscribers. With a whopping 12.7 million total subscribers, the paper is closing in on its goal of 15 million subs by the end of 2027.

To call the contrast stark is an understatement.

Here are two legendary publications presumably in the same business. One is growing and vital, the other is stalling out and increasingly irrelevant.

So what's the secret of the NYT, and what in the world does any of this have to do with Christian music radio?

Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien touted the Times’ diversified portfolio – Games, Cooking, The Athletic, and more. She spoke about how the Times will continue to “thoughtfully invest, making what we do more rare and more valuable to more people.”

Hold up. Read that again:

As I read this, one word sticks out: Rare.

Note that she didn't say anything about a "newspaper." Indeed, she didn't even mention "news."

Here's a newspaper (more than that actually, but that's what it's most famous for) in the news business - the same type of publication in the same type of business as the flailing Washington Post. Yet one enjoys feast while the other suffers famine.

And then there's that word again: Rare.

Count the number of things that the NYT does or has that are rare: Not just the flagship paper and its digital platform, but The Athletic, Wirecutter, NYT Cooking, NYT Games (including Wordle), Serial Productions, popular podcasts like The Daily, their own wine club, and more.

In other words, the NYT sees themselves as a network of compelling content and experiences for a growing audience who comes to the brand because of all that content, and not because the "newspaper" is "all the news that's fit to print."

And what does this have to do with you?

You are no more a radio station than the NYT is a newspaper company.

You have built an audience for faith-based content. Now your opportunity (or is it your obligation) is to provide more content and more experiences in more places and on more platforms for that audience and their friends and families.

It's your opportunity to make stuff that's rare and put it on platforms and in places where new fans will find it.

I still see too many Christian radio brands too obsessed with their own airwaves and not nearly obsessed enough with making anything rare. After all, you're playing the industry hits. Only between the records and off the air can you do anything actually rare.

So are you?

Just as churches are much more likely to grow their "audiences" by reaching people with new experiences and new content on new platforms (as opposed to waiting for them to join the in-person congregation), so are you.

Unlike the commercial stations, your business model is dependent on fans, not on listeners and not on advertisers. Stop pretending to be iHeart. Even iHeart doesn't want to be iHeart.

Don't expect your new fan to come because she's there for your radio station (maybe she will, but most likely she won't). In fact, ask your team this question regularly: How many fans did we grow for content and experiences outside our radio airwaves?

Then and only then are you no longer a radio station. You are officially a Christian media brand.

Welcome to the future. It's here now.

Mark Ramsey Media does audience research for Christian Media - Perceptual research, digital studies, donor studies, underwriter impact studies, music studies, etc. Learn more here. Call Mark at 858-414-4191 or email markramsey@mac.com.

And if you want a strategy to solicit major donors to pay for your research, look here and download this Listener Impact Study solicitation for donors from WAKW-FM.

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