Your blog this morning is not necessarily what I wanted to read first thing on a Monday, but I applaude your incredible insight. As the President of a medium-sized broadcast mininstry, it has become painfully obvious that the need for new thinking and a redirection of priorities will be necessary for sustained existence. Notice I said existence, not growth. There has been tremendous ebb-and-flow with media ministries over the past 32 years that I have been involved with them, from local church to international ministries; however, NEVER has there been more uncertainty of our future than present trends lay before us. Forget that fund-raising in this environment has been unprecendentingly difficult. Forget that broadcast networks continue to raise rates in spite of knowing the difficulties ministries are facing. Forget the NOW…what about tomorrow? If broadcast leaders don’t get a handle on the future instead of just concentrating on the survival of the here-and-now, there will be no future. Super-ministries will become a thing of the past and only those with forward-thinking will survive. Thanks for the heads-up and courage to point out the obvious…even on a Monday morning!

The key from my perspective is developing innovation (not doing the same old… same old), planning and marketing (strategy, goals and objectives), optimization and execution (doing what it takes to make things better and becoming more efficient at it).

Results are showing that there is still an audience out there, however if it is getting smaller…then as a part of your approach you need to find out where the niche audience is and focus your ROI there as you continue to target and develope other sources of income.

One side note to Ron…good points….however about networks raising rates…we are NOT seeing higher rates in fact in many cases we have negotiated lower rates over the past year based on the soft economy.

As we learn through this process…I hope to respond to change wisely.

I have served many media ministries and have experienced great success down through many years and economic cycles.  Yes, ministries cutback when they need to, but today,  so many are growing like never before as they embrace the new media using the Internet.  I may be readhed through social media networks I subscribe to. 

As far as costs go, it is a challenge, but we always manage to pay our bills. As far as the future, I believe change will be needed but I do not think that the economic problems brought that to light. Anyone with any business sense knows that change is a way of life. So with media’s huge potential to reach millions and cross borders, we all need to maintain an open mind to the future, realizing from the past that the changes that are occuring now will actually provide us with the ability to reach even more people.

Gary Keesee