I've been wondering....

Now I am wondering! Only 7 people has answered the poll! Does this mean that only 7 people that read this forum has ever actually attended GGWO? :blink:

Maybe the next poll should include options like "GGWO? What is that? Is that a church?" and "I have never heard of GGWO before" :wacko:

Perhaps I should explain that, if you take the poll, the ONLY thing that happens is -- your vote gets added to the above tally. That's it. You don't get added to any lists, no email replies, nothing. Just an anonymous "vote."

I created the poll out of curiosity. The church in Baltimore spends tens of thousands/month to be on the radio. While they boast of it being a "talk" program, about 1/2 of show is preaching. (Oh yeah... I guess preaching is a form of talking, isn't it?) While they boast of the "millions" who listen, they seem to get 80+% of all their 4-5 daily calls from members of one of their own churches. And most of those calls are from the same 15 people or so.

Wouldn't it be a better use of their funds to simply send DVDs to those handful of "faithful" listeners? And a DVD player? And a big screen tv on which to view them... Still cheaper than the money they spend on air time every month.

So -- when you were in, did you listen to the show? (Sorry, I didn't include a simple "no" choice... use "We had a radio show?" for that...)

I hardly ever listened to the radio show but any opportunity I had I rushed up to Schemerhorn to sit in the radio show room and bask in the glory of it all. I know now I was basking in some pretty weird $hit.

I think the poll is interesting. They must get estimates of the numbers of listeners from the stations they are on, but do they ever tell anyone the real numbers? I don't think so. I think they don't even care. They would boast even if they had one listener, Jerry from Montreal! Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember that someone in the bubble said once that every caller represents 10 to 20k listeners. So if they had about 5-10 callers it would mean 50 to 200k listeners.

I don't know if these figures are realistic. The GGWO has a history a slight tendency towards exaggeration in numbers. It is like sports to them. "5 decades on the air"? Impossible. Was it "220 countries by 2000"? There are not that many countries in the world! And on and on it goes.

When I was in I listened to the show next to never. Too boring. An old "message" was played never in full length and then people started to call either to praise CHS, to ask simple questions, to preach or to utter a prayer request. I was urged many times to call in and ask something or just call and say hello. I never did.

There are several radio shows in Finland made by the Finnish GG and at least one GG pastor was (maybe he still is) doing a show with pastors from other denominations. Much due to these shows the Finnish GG is accepted among the evangelical churches in Finland. In public the Bible Speaks of Finland has very much detached itself from the "problems with GGWO in the USA". That is obvious f.ex. from the Wikipedia article in Finnish.

PS. Oh why did you change that great Avatar of yours, JC? I don't even realize what is the current one!

I used to listen every day when it was Telephone Time.

I like reading Hodeuons commentary better though,now that I have things more clear in my understanding of just how off most of what was taught was and still is.

You know what they say (who are they that say anyway?) ,live and learn?

As for TGH I had too much to do on the route I drove but did get a few in now and then.

Now I pick out the chicken from the bones with anyone I happen to listen to.

There are some semi-scientific ways to determine "market share" of a given radio station, in a specific market, at a given time of the day. Those numbers are very important, as commercial stations use them to determine their rates. I imagine many of the stations gh is on are simply commercial stations who broadcast preaching as opposed to music or some other format.

I don't think so, either. Hodeoun recently quoted Scibelli as giving some numbers. I think it was a million "listeners" or more. I do not believe that for a minute! I'm sure that the combined POTENTIAL audience size is a million or more. i.e.: if you add up all the people within the geographical areas in which the radio show is being broadcast, I'm sure there are a million or more "potential" listeners. But ACTUAL listeners?

:lol:

I've heard similar formulas, but NEVER heard one caller represented more than 100 or maybe 1,000 listeners. But -- Roger Wimmer

"received his Ph.D. in mass media research from Bowling Green State University in Ohio in 1976, although he has been involved in mass media research since 1972. Roger's background includes Sales rep at KLSS/KSMN, Mason City, Iowa, Instructor at the University of Wisconsin, Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, Associate Professor at the University of Georgia, Manager of Research for Cox Broadcasting in Atlanta, GA, and adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

"Prior to founding Wimmer Research, based in Lakewood, Colorado, Roger was co-founder of Wimmer-Hudson Research & Development, President/CEO/Co-founder of The Eagle Group, President/General Partner/Co-founder of Paragon Research, and President of Surrey Research.

'In the radio industry, Roger has conducted virtually all types of research for radio stations in a variety of formats, including News/Talk, AC, Oldies, Classic Rock, Classic Hits, CHR, Country, Urban, Alternative, Religious, and Jazz."

Sufficient credentials to address your question?

On his website, Dr. Wimmer answered this question for someone:

If a listener calls a radio station with a positive or negative comment, how many other listeners does that one person represent? - Anonymous

Anon: The answer is anywhere from zero (the person who called may have been joking) to as many radio listeners there are in the market. In other words, I don’t know. And no one else does either.

The only way to find out how many other people agree with the caller’s comment is to conduct a scientific study with a randomly selected sample of listeners.

By the way…the urban legend/myth/fairy tale about one caller (or letter) representing other listeners started in the 1930s or 1940s when radio broadcasters and advertisers began to take an interest in how many people were in the audience. Someone, and I don’t know who it was, came up with the idea that a person who calls a radio station (or sends a letter) “represents” 10 other listeners. That was hogwash then and it’s hogwash now.

Contrary to an accusation once thrown at me, the previous avatar was merely an album cover, and had nothing to do with Nazis! B) And the new avatar is another album cover. I have a kewpie doll for the first person to identify the album. (Epistula -- you can't vote, since I already told you what album it is!)

Gee, that's twice in 24 hours I did a "stealth" post -- maybe I'm channeling this guy...

Here on the West coast, the show can be heard on the internet but it is on too early.

When I was in MD I was at work that time of day and I could not pick up the signal.

So yes there was a time when I was interested in hearing the show but no I did not hear it very often.

Neil Young Chrome Dreams II

And, yes, I am just *that* good...

Damn it, woman! Okay, one of these, or one of these?

I'll take door number one.

Exactly, but commercial stations have to publish big numbers in order to have more advertisers.

The question: How many listeners the GH has?

The data

I did a small calculation from Hodeuons Commentaries in January 2008. He commented on 16 shows with the call-in segment. There were 61 callers out of which 36 (59 %) were GGers. Of the callers 9 were GG pastors that would make the average local "church" size about 25 that may be a very good estimate globally. According to John's little poll (n=12), one third of the GGers are regular or somewhat regular listeners to the show.

The conclusions

Scenario #1. Let's call it "the Scibelli's hypothesis" that states there are 1 million listeners to the show.

If 59 % of the listeners were GGers that would mean there are 590,000 GGers globally listening to the show. If only 33 % of the GGers were actually listening to the show, it would mean there are 1,77 million GGers in the world of which 70,800 were pastors! Whew!

Now from that scary dystopia, let's get to a more realistic way to approach the question at hand.

Scenario #2. Let's call it "the mathematical hypothesis".

How many GGers are there in the world? There was a time when I heard an estimate of 14,000, but many have left since then and maybe a few have joined the cult. Let's not get stuck in here but say that there are 9,000 GGers in the world (we can correct the number later, if needed).

Of the 9,000 (includes 360 "pastors") about 3,000 would be regular listeners to the show. If those 3,000 formed 59 % of the total number of listeners, it would make the grand total 5,085 regular listeners to the Grace Hour! How does that sound?

==
These calculations were provided to you freely by

Mr. P.J. Perttula, M.Sc.
Biologist, Photographer, Private Entrepreneur, Web Author, Corporal (Res., Armored Corps)

PS. Enough credentials for you? :D
PS2. Mace, don't you dare to ask, "Shouldn't you be working on your time warp calculations, Mr. Spock?"