My 5:25 flight out of Nashville was delayed until 6:30, according to the e-mail. Okay, I have more time for my meetings and can head out later than expected.

When I arrived at the airport the enormous departure sign in the concourse indicated that my flight was still scheduled for 5:25.

Ouch! I hadn’t planned for that! I had only twenty minutes to make it through security and get to gate C19, the farthest away!

I ran up to the gate only to see the sign “DELAYED”. Bemused by the contradiction and frustrated by the awkward cowboy boot run through the airport, the smiling lady at the Southwest counter responded, “Those signs are run by the airport. They are not coordinated with the gate.”

“But that is the purpose of the signs,” I responded, “to let people know the latest on when their flight departs.”

Ridiculous, I know! The sign didn’t do the very thing it was designed to do, and no one seemed to even mind. But how often does this happen at our radio stations?

I know of a station that wanted to do a daily fishing report, despite the fact that no one tuned to their station for that. The programming element was disconnected from the very purpose of the radio station.

Likely you’ve run across that with the Saturday night teen show, obituaries, radio dramas for children, or just songs that your listeners don’t like all that much.

What is your station designed to do? How is each feature on your station designed to enhance that experience and add value to your brand?

Successful radio stations are built through listener loyalty as demonstrated by more frequent listening occasions*. That happens only when a station consistently fulfills the listeners’ expectations.

Written from seat 26C. With my boots off!

“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.” Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz”

Think about the things you love.

I first loved the guitar because my high school buddies Kenny and Wally loved the guitar.

I first loved baseball because my dad loved baseball. In fact, when you ask someone how they became a baseball fan they usually respond by talking about someone else.

I love Mexican food because I’m a Texan. It’s the law.

I first came to faith because it was lived out for me by two people I admired most – my mom and dad. I wanted to be like them. In fact, I still do.

Everyone that listens to your station does so because they love something else. So every effort we make to make them love our radio “stuff” misses the point. It’s like trying to convince a baseball fan to love a team because the bases are 90 feet apart.

It’s not about Hercules and the Chicken Fat People’s new CD or concert tour. It’s not about which artist won what award. It’s not about 52 minutes of continuous music, 5 in a row, fewer interruptions, or more this or less that.

Take a walk through ‪#‎Mypostseason‬ on Instagram. You’ll see very few pictures of baseball players, and even fewer of runs, hits, and errors. What you will see are lots of happy people with their friends celebrating and having a splendid ole time at the ballpark, proudly wearing their team’s gear.

People love your radio station because they love something else. When you figure that out, just stand back and watch people begin to love your station.

“We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are. We even choose our service providers based on how closely they mirror the way we would run their company. We’re attracted to reflections of ourselves. A salesperson points out this reflection, “That’s you, isn’t it?” and then gives the intellect the facts it needs to justify the purchase. Win the heart and the mind will follow.” Roy Williams

Pastor Appreciation Month is almost over. Mercifully. Is this really how we describe a once in a lifetime opportunity to love on people who devote their lives to loving on people? Who named it? Ace Hardware?

No other format can touch such a deep place in the heart as ours, and yet we often sound like an IRS manual as we convey data, data, data, about this and that.

I recently heard two consecutive features on one station begin with the giving of the date, “Today is October 26, 2014.” Well, thank you very much. That will be very helpful to me if my desk calendar catches on fire.

There is no promotion so brilliant that it can’t be made utterly ineffective through the presentation of data.

This isn’t just about an esoteric interpretation of messaging. This is about what is effective.

Here’s the deal.

“Research shows when people think analytically they are less likely to think emotionally. The mere act of calculation reduces people’s charity. Once we put on our analytical hats, we react to emotional appeals differently. We hinder our ability to feel.”

In “Made to Stick” Chip and Dan Heath share that the goal of the message is to make people care.

“Feelings inspire people to act. For people to take action, they have to care. To make people care about ideas we get them to take off their Analytical Hats.”

That means we have to move beyond Pastor Appreciation Month and into something that stirs the heart.

Here’s an idea! Let’s turn our current analytical checklist of who, what, where, and why into the beginning of an emotional connection.

‘Who’ becomes “who would enjoy this, too?”

‘What’ becomes “what can I do to help?”

‘Where’ becomes “where else would I rather be?”

And ‘why’ becomes the all important “Why do I care?”

Don’t tell me today’s date and give me more data. Paint me a picture of why I should care.

My recent travels transported me into the middle of a meeting about how to stay competitive in a marketplace of Christian music formats beamed in from, say, Rocklin, California.

Inevitably the phrase “live and local” landed on the conference table like a rock through the window. After several minutes of “we’re better because we live here” navel-gazing, I broke up the ego-fest with questions like, “Does anyone care?” “How does this add value to the listener’s experience?”, and the notorious, “What are you trying to accomplish?”

I hate it when I do that.

The not-thought-out-too-much assumption is that a $7.93 an hour deejay sitting in a chair in zip code 32766 will add value beyond that of Jimmy Fallon. This kind of logic is epidemic in Christian radio and, frankly, gives me the heebeegeebees.

Live and local isn’t a real goal any more than having a red sports car is a goal. It’s merely a means to a goal. (A red sports car really means “I’m not old yet”).

Now don’t take this the wrong way. There’s nothing wrong with being live and local. Some of the snazziest stations I work with embrace this idea. But those stations understand that L&L is simply a means to a goal: to be RELEVANT in a way that is preferable and more meaningful to their listeners. Whether it’s traffic information to help me get my kids to school on time, severe weather coverage to help keep my family safe, or stories about neighbor helping neighbor that reinforces the values of your listeners, live and local is merely a means.

But there is a bigger idea. What we’re really talking about is whether L&L helps your station embrace a frame of reference that connects with your listeners.

For Christian music stations the frame of reference can be described as:

1. We seek a relationship with our Creator, and desire to understand the purpose in our life
2. We understand that our lives are connected to others, and that we will have an impact on our families and communities, and they on us (for better or worse)
3. It is a precious thing to offer hope and inspiration

But that opens a can of worms called STRATEGY best saved for a future Frost Advisory.

So if your station is trying to compete with a format beamed in from, say, Rocklin, California, go ahead: be a good live and local neighbor. Just make sure the things you’re doing are things your listeners actually care about.

In just a few weeks many Christian music radio stations across the country will be turning their format upside down and going all-Christmas.

E-gads! What’s with that?

for King & Country will give way to Nat King Cole, Plumb is swapped for Bing, and Michael W. Smith is replaced by, well, Michael W. Smith.

And we all understand why. To attract more listeners.

Or, to put it another way, for our stations to be more accepted.

Acceptance is a powerful idea. It’s often the basis for our friendships, the groups we hang out with, and even the church we go to.

The opposite is also true. Lack of acceptance is often what divides political parties, causes people to go to court, and fractures families and friendships.

Andy Stanley recently shared the idea that acceptance lowers resistance. It is the groups that accept you that often have the greatest influence, whether your college fraternity, your Harley rider’s club, or your small group at church.

Notice the sequence – acceptance happens before influence. You probably didn’t have your first cigarette alone, Andy Stanley observes. It was being with friends, those that accepted you, that lowered your resistance and allowed their ideas or behaviors a foot in the door. Every parent instinctively knows this to be true, which is why we’re so concerned about who our kids hang around with.

So if acceptance leads to influence (positive or negative), and Christian music stations exist to have greater influence, then it seems to me that figuring out how to build acceptance into your station would be a pretty important deal.