Susan, Hold on to your hat! I AGREE WITH YOU TOTALLY.
Susan, you wrote… “Our problem is a lack of good stations and too many mom and pops that don’t put out a quality program.” I couldn’t agree more, too many folks in local or regional radio have no idea what they are going, with few exceptions.
We keep being to told that the main reason why we aren’t getting air play is that we are too traditional Southern Gospel
A record promoter told us that… “Jim, Do you mind if I just say “WoW!” You all do some really good traditional Southern Gospel singing. “I’m serious, I doubt there are many groups traveling that could hold a light to what you all do. There are few that can sing the real “old traditional” style, and you all do it so well.”
No matter how much acknowledgment we get, we know that we are not going to get air play. It is not what we are all about, but it would be nice for our music ministry to get a wider fan base. For anyone interested we have some new sound clips on our web site http://www.evidencemusicministry.com give us a listen sometime, I think you will find a variety in music styles too. I hope you enjoy
I really think we could appeal to a younger crowd than we currently have, but I agree that the majority of the 12 to 25 crowd isn’t going to listen. Groups like Austins Bridge are doing a good job reaching a new audience. However, we can’t mix groups like Austins Bridge and the Martins with the Primitives or McKameys. We’ve got to specialize our stations and target an audience of listeners. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all station because we are just too broad. It is being done and just ain’t working.
I disagree. It is being done, it just isn’t being done on a large enough scale to make an impact. And it isn’t being done well. A good radio station that knows how to program, has good DJs can do it. Our problem is a lack of good stations and too many mom and pops that don’t put out a quality program.
I don’t understand. What do you mean by a “quality program?”
I really think we could appeal to a younger crowd than we currently have, but I agree that the majority of the 12 to 25 crowd isn’t going to listen. Groups like Austins Bridge are doing a good job reaching a new audience. However, we can’t mix groups like Austins Bridge and the Martins with the Primitives or McKameys. We’ve got to specialize our stations and target an audience of listeners. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all station because we are just too broad. It is being done and just ain’t working.
I totally disagree. The He’s Alive Radio Network does it everyday and we are growing (Our signal now overs over 4 million people) I mix groups like the Inspirations up against Everyday Driven. The blend is great. Hey folks - the electric guitar doesn’t frighten people anymore! Just think....people that went to Woodstock are now listening to SGM!
People can be trained to open their minds to new things. A slow moving of the boundries over the past few years has enabled us to reach a place where Lillie Knauls, Doyle Lawson, Jason Crabb, Quinton Mills, Austins Bridge, the Hoppers, McKameys, Jeff and Sheri Easter, Kingsmen, Dove Brothers,Michael English etc,can exist side by side and people love it. Balance, proportion....its in the mix.
I’ll take a song by the Primitives over some foul twangy, poorly produced , emotionless,mainstream sounding quartet anyday. Quality is what counts. If its quality, they will listen. I even mix in - gasp!, George Strait, Randy Travis and Vince Gill - and people love it!
No specialization is a poor idea. The genre is to narrow now to draw a mass audience. “All Quartets All The Time” would bomb over the airwaves.
I really think we could appeal to a younger crowd than we currently have, but I agree that the majority of the 12 to 25 crowd isn’t going to listen. Groups like Austins Bridge are doing a good job reaching a new audience. However, we can’t mix groups like Austins Bridge and the Martins with the Primitives or McKameys. We’ve got to specialize our stations and target an audience of listeners. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all station because we are just too broad. It is being done and just ain’t working.
I disagree. It is being done, it just isn’t being done on a large enough scale to make an impact. And it isn’t being done well. A good radio station that knows how to program, has good DJs can do it. Our problem is a lack of good stations and too many mom and pops that don’t put out a quality program.
I don’t understand. What do you mean by a “quality program?”
They don’t program good music. They play anything and everything instead of filtering out the bad music.
I really think we could appeal to a younger crowd than we currently have, but I agree that the majority of the 12 to 25 crowd isn’t going to listen. Groups like Austins Bridge are doing a good job reaching a new audience. However, we can’t mix groups like Austins Bridge and the Martins with the Primitives or McKameys. We’ve got to specialize our stations and target an audience of listeners. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all station because we are just too broad. It is being done and just ain’t working.
I totally disagree. The He’s Alive Radio Network does it everyday and we are growing (Our signal now overs over 4 million people) I mix groups like the Inspirations up against Everyday Driven. The blend is great. Hey folks - the electric guitar doesn’t frighten people anymore! Just think....people that went to Woodstock are now listening to SGM!
People can be trained to open their minds to new things. A slow moving of the boundries over the past few years has enabled us to reach a place where Lillie Knauls, Doyle Lawson, Jason Crabb, Quinton Mills, Austins Bridge, the Hoppers, McKameys, Jeff and Sheri Easter, Kingsmen, Dove Brothers,Michael English etc,can exist side by side and people love it. Balance, proportion....its in the mix.
I’ll take a song by the Primitives over some foul twangy, poorly produced , emotionless,mainstream sounding quartet anyday. Quality is what counts. If its quality, they will listen. I even mix in - gasp!, George Strait, Randy Travis and Vince Gill - and people love it!
No specialization is a poor idea. The genre is to narrow now to draw a mass audience. “All Quartets All The Time” would bomb over the airwaves.
I really think we could appeal to a younger crowd than we currently have, but I agree that the majority of the 12 to 25 crowd isn’t going to listen. Groups like Austins Bridge are doing a good job reaching a new audience. However, we can’t mix groups like Austins Bridge and the Martins with the Primitives or McKameys. We’ve got to specialize our stations and target an audience of listeners. We can’t have a one-size-fits-all station because we are just too broad. It is being done and just ain’t working.
I disagree. It is being done, it just isn’t being done on a large enough scale to make an impact. And it isn’t being done well. A good radio station that knows how to program, has good DJs can do it. Our problem is a lack of good stations and too many mom and pops that don’t put out a quality program.
I don’t understand. What do you mean by a “quality program?”
They don’t program good music. They play anything and everything instead of filtering out the bad music.
Makes perfect sense. But, a station can play only the best southern gospel—and I mean good songs, good vocals, good music, no bad notes, no twang,—and people who don’t like southern gospel still aren’t going to listen to it.
I was afraid you meant that good quality programming had to cross lots of bridges and play all genres to try to “reach” everybody and I don’t think that works either because purists look it as watering down.
I still think Deon had the right idea—appeal to the younger crowd that likes country music and show them the similarities to southern gospel. There must be lots of country music lovers. Country stations seem to outnumber all other kinds many times over.
Marketing to the Country crowd is a good idea. However to assume that it is a “younger” country crowd is misleading. Many older people can be broughtin from Country, esp. those that are not at ease with the modern country sound.
A second rock that I like to turn over to find listeners is the disenfranchised Inspo listener. Inspo music has alienated those that loved the vocal driven music of Sandi Patty, Twila Paris, Michael English, etc. These folks have lost their home on the air. I try to include songs similar to these. Beautiful, vocal driven soloists and groups with a mellow enough sound to fit in.
Music by Michael English, Point of Grace, Hopes Call all fit the bill. They sound great next to the core music. They don’t chase people off, and they broaden the net to catch more listeners.
It is very difficult to draw listeners from Christian AC/Inspo radio to the SG format. The two are light years apart. Even the groups that we in SG consider AC aren’t that close. The diction and harmony just don’t match up.
The SG music that I program has allowed us to cultivate a younger 35 - 45 yr old crowd without alienating the senior crowd. This is accomplished by playing music that is of the highest quality - zero tolerance for twang or poor sound quality regardless of who it is. We are not afraid of the electric guitar and realize that it takes more than just great vocals to draw a crowd. The music is important and lackluster cookie cutter tracks don’t make it.
We also pay attention to the tempo of the music that is played. We are up tempo 3/4 of the time. Radio can’t afford to put people to sleep at the wheel. The younger audience appreciates this.
When I go to concerts I see a great age mix. We are attracting younger people and the older crowd is still there as well.
Sometimes its not what we play - its what we don’t play.
Tim,
You are so right. I have been saying for years that we waste our time worrying about trying to influence the CCM crowd. We are trying to mix water and oil with the two. It’s never going to happen.
We do have a huge Country audience that has tons of young people in it, who would love good SGM if they heard it. Same chord structures, same vowels, the harmony, just a lot of things alike, but we still sit around and argue why we can’t draw the young people from the CCM crowd.
You are also very right about the music you play. People like upbeat material for the most part when they are listening to radio. The also like quality. There is a ton of quality to be played, yet I still hear questionable music played even on some of our big named stations.
IF COUNTRY RADIO COULD DO IT YEARS AGO, SO CAN SG, IF OUR INDUSTRY LEADERS WOULD GET THEIR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND AND THEIR HANDS OUT OF EVERYBODY’S POCKETS WHO CAN’T SING.
I don’t think we can forget that commercial radio is still an advertiser-supported medium. No matter how great the quality of programming and the number of younger, country-crossover fans listen, if the advertisers are not supported, the station will fail. Of course you could go the “listener-supported” model, but nothing turns me off a station (TV or Radio) than their nearly monthly ‘pledge drives’.
Southern California once had a popular country radio station KZLA. From what I heard, they had decent ratings, and it was one of my ‘presets’ in the car. All of a sudden they changed to “moving 93.9” - a hip-hop and modern pop station. They could attract more money from advertisers because the new station targeted a mostly younger, female audience that was more loyal and more desirable to marketers. Just go to http://www.kzla.com, see the website message, and see where you are directed.
In larger markets the airwaves are a precious commodity. No matter how great the southern gospel mix is and how appealing it is to a crossover audience, it will never make it in major markets given the demographics of the core audience.
i am a young person myself. and i guess the “sound” is what doesnt capture ppl. i used to listen to southern gospel a lot. the real twangy kind. but then it sort of changed. and what has gotten me back in to it, is the new Palmetto State Quartet. they have such a unique sound. and so much energy on stage.
Why are we worried about how many “young listeners” we get? Also it isnt a battle about who is better than who! CC and SGM has one main reason for doing what they do...And that is to make sure we get God’s word out there..So What if CC gets the younger audience, we just sing to who God puts in front of us and we do it for his glory! I think sometimes we just lose track of why we are here! We should just be praising God to be able to minister to his people Young or Old!
And look at ernie hausse ... he has introduced many young ppl to SGM by singing the old time convention songs!!!
Why are we worried about how many “young listeners” we get?
The absence of youth listening to southern gospel is akin to a church with only elderly members. Give each a few years without adding youth, and you’ll watch a slow death.
Not necessarily. There was a man in the bible, Epaphroditus, who scripture said almost died trying to do alone what others should have been helping to do.
There are lots of SG artists right now who are wearing out their bodies doing 250+ days a year. Its not always that they want to do it. It’s not always that they feel God has “called them” to that lifestyle. Often it is because they have spent their youth pursuing SG, and now in mid-life, they have no other marketable skills to offer an employer. I sat across the table from one such man a few weeks ago. He said at 55 he’s stuck because he doesn’t know how to do anything else and his body is wearing out.
For the most parts, flats have stayed the same or even decreased since the 90s. Expenses have gone up several fold in that same period. Our area has gone from 3 SG stations to 1. The one is playing a mix of SG and Christian Country. Very few listeners.
I agree w/ or w/o a band isn’t the issue. My favorite group is SSQ and I could care less if they just had the piano or band. To me it’s the entertainment/ministry that attracts me.
I’ve been to several concerts (if 5 is considered several) and the place is always packed. I’m 48 and believe me there are LOTS of people there much younger than I am. Everytime I go to their concert, I am so happy to see the much younger generation represented. You see young couples, couples with children, or just teenagers. I went to one concert and these teenagers drove 6 hours to get to the concert - one way. So I think SG is reaching the younger generations - at least SSQ is. Ernie has said many a times that his goal is to reach the younger generation. These people are our future and we must try to reach them.
For me, as I previously mentioned I love the entertainment/ministry. I can go to a concert and laugh, cry and be fully blessed. Their actions/ movements/dancing doesn’t bother me one bit. I really enjoy it. It doesn’t detract from their message one bit. And looking at the younger folks in the crowd, they really enjoy it.
Another reason I think their appeal is they are personable. I can go to a concert and talk to them and feel like we’re friends. I can get a hug and know they really care. If you go to their concert, they are at their product table before the concert, at intermission, and after the concert (except Ernie who only is there after the concert). But I’ve seen these younger people getting autograph, getting their picture taken with the guys, and/or getting a hug. I’ve also seen teenagers calling one of their friends and handing the phone over to one of the guys for them to say hi to one of their friends and getting a big kick out of it. If a group continues to do things like that, don’t you think more younger folks would come - of course.
Also someone mentioned earlier that SSQ is on MySpace. There is also a thread on their website for younger fans which is pretty active.
So I do think we are reaching the younger generation. We need to reach more. I think more can be reached if more groups were willing to think ‘outside the box’.
