Dear Journey Family Member,
The holiday season is here and it is with grateful hearts and a specific vision that we want to share with you our programming strategy for Christmas 2023. During this season, many listeners scan the radio looking for favorite Christmas songs and messages of hope and meaning. Our goal is to create an atmosphere of joy, full of songs, stories, and memories of a family-centered, traditional, Hometown Christmas.
We will begin our “Journey Hometown Christmas,” the day after Thanksgiving and continue through Christmas Day, Dec. 25. We’ll share stories from our staff, artists and listeners and you’ll hear classic Christmas songs from artists like Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and Andy Williams. Songs that you’ve known and loved for years. We will have a mix of Christmas songs and regular songs from Dec. 26th through Dec. 29th.
There are three reasons for this strategy.
First, we do not want our regular listeners to have to seek elsewhere to hear their favorite Christmas songs which have been a part of their lives for as long as they can remember. We want to be their first listening choice for the season!
Second, part of our goal is to reach those who have not yet believed and we would like to create a warm, welcoming and familiar atmosphere for those who might not normally listen to Christian radio, but are attracted to the Christmas songs and messages of hope.
Third, we will specifically refer, during this time, to the kind of music that The Journey plays the other 11 months of the year and welcome our seasonal listeners to “stay with us” after Christmas.
Christmas offers a wonderful opportunity for radio listeners to sample The Journey while browsing for holiday songs. We know that Christmas can be difficult and lonely for many, and we hope that by playing many familiar and warm Christmas songs, we can reach those who are unaware of Christian music and perhaps, while their hearts are soft and receptive, reach them for Christ in the new year.
Our desire is that when your friends and neighbors hear the hope and the truth of the Gospel mixed in with the their favorite Christmas classics, they will be encouraged enough to keep listening to The Journey in January and beyond.
We are deeply thankful to you for listening to The Journey. Please join us in celebrating the Journey’s 9th anniversary on December 26th.
Wishing you a blessed and beautiful Christmas,
Kenny Robinson
Program Director
The Journey