There are two principal groups of stakeholders in the religious broadcasting industry.
The first group is the churches, ministries, and other organizations that create content.
The second group is the radio and television stations that distribute the content.
Each group has its own funding mechanisms.
There are three ways to fund a media ministry:
• Fundraising appeals made to mass audiences, and development activities including individual, corporate, and foundation relationships, and direct marketing
• Funding by a local church that starts and/or produces the content
• Selling resources, e.g. Bible studies, books, videos, training courses, etc.
There are three ways to fund a Christian radio or TV station:
• Selling program airtime to media ministries, or revenue sharing arrangements with media ministry partners (primarily a percentage of income received by the ministry shared with its noncommercial station partner)
• Selling advertising (commercial stations), or sponsorship underwriting (funding given by a company in exchange for mention of their product or service on noncommercial stations)
• Appealing to the audience for financial support (noncommercial stations)
Controlled experiments
As an industry, religious broadcasting has continued to use a business model that has not significantly changed in 60 years. It cannot be assumed that past funding methods will indefinitely meet the challenges of a radically different social, technological, business and religious environment.
Media and outreach communication is vastly different today.
The time has come to create new ways of doing ministry and business that recognizes the importance of religious broadcasting both as a leading catalyst in fulfilling the Great Commission – and as a marketing channel for publishers, and source for sales in other channels.
New ministry and business initiatives will have to be identified. A business associate said to me recently, “You just won’t know what works in a startup venture until you get out there in the marketplace.”
Like a startup, leap of faith assumptions for creating new business models just need to be launched and systematically tested through controlled experiments.
Each test will be an opportunity to gain the experience and data necessary to determine which innovations will help everybody fund and accomplish what God has called them to do.
The best place to start is with a clean whiteboard, prayerfully considering the question: If religious broadcasting were invented today, with current technologies and capabilities, what would the models of business and ministry need to look like to successfully take advantage of all the opportunities?
Collaborative innovation
Some intriguing ideas could include:
- No cost distribution for content providers on digital platforms
- Cooperative marketing initiatives
- Ad revenue sharing arrangements between commercial stations and content providers
- Data sharing and joint analyses projects
- A common service for connected TV app development
- New video channels for introducing next generation content to global audiences
- Co-created infrastructure, platform and software services
- Free content online
- Video ad delivery solutions and analytic systems
- Ceation of api’s to partner with internet evangelism ministries.
Religious broadcasting is one of the most unique industries in the world. It has an appointed place in the supernatural battle going on in the invisible world for the souls of men, women and children. No one organization, idea, or initiative will produce a single solution.
Everybody with a stake in the future of religious broadcasting needs to contribute to the process.
It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. Luke 6:48
I am amazed at what God is doing through the growing number of churches and ministries doing digital media outreach. I wonder how much more innovation can be produced for His name and glory through large-scale collaborative efforts.
Respecting common ground, goals and heritage will be imperative in this building program. So too, quickly stepping forward with courage, conviction, and commitment. It will take time to develop, run, and analyze the tests.
Every aspect of the of the process will need to be bathed in prayer.
Making fundamental structural changes to business models will be necessary if religious broadcasting is to remain the leading platform for taking the gospel to the world in the 21st century.
Now is the time to put the building blocks into place for creating that bridge to the future.