God's soundtrack dominates America with K-Love's Alan Mason.

K-Love Radio is heard on nearly 1000 radio signals in 48 states, Samoa, Puerto Rico and Washington DC.  It is by far the largest outlet for Contemporary Christian music in the world.   It is truly a phenomenon!  It started with one radio station in California with one guy's "God inspired" idea.  (Founder, Bob Anthony was our guest on episode 43 in season 2)

In this episode we get some of the inside scoop on K-Love's exponential growth in the last few decades with our guest Alan Mason.  He was the COO and then president  of K-Love  starting in 2004 until his retirement in 2020. 
You'll find out the keys that make K-Love such a powerful ministry,  how music is selected and programmed, who are the Christian music superstars and what's really at the heart of the Christian music industry.

Alan shares his own personal story and the impact that his wife Becky has had on his faith journey.   You'll hear how God directed him to make the  most improbable career decision that didn't even make sense to him. 

I think you will find that this is an awesome inside look at the fastest growing radio format in the country, what makes it work and how it is so much different than any other music format.  Take a listen and you too will become a "radio insider"!!

You can watch this episode on Youtube

#Klove #alanmason #christianpodcast #air1 #christianmusic

"Amazing Greats"  is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey.  Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels.   Available on Apple,  Spotify, iHeart, Google and our  YouTube Channel. 
Please help us grow our audience by "liking", "subscribing and "Sharing".   Thanks so much. 

Transcript

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Ric 0:00

Hi, this is Rick Hans, and this is Amazing Great. Thank you for tuning in. This week's episode, we're talking with a radio great, one of the guys who was at the very beginning and was in many ways very responsible for the advancement of contemporary Christian music and contemporary Christian radio. His name's Alan Mason, and today we have an opportunity to not only dig into uh the Christian radio thing, but also about his life and his own spiritual journey. So join us now as we continue on with Amazing Greats. Alan Mason is our guest on Amazing Greats. Hey, Alan. Alan is a lifelong radio executive and was largely responsible for the growth and development of the largest Christian radio network in history. We know them as K-Love and Air One. As the chief operating officer there from 2004 to 2016, you're a part of the phenomenal growth years of contemporary Christian radio across the country. Alan was chosen to one of the 50 most influential people in Christian music and the 2007 recipient of the Scott Campbell Award and the GMA Echo Award for Impact on Christian Music Radio. Wow, what a resume!

SPEAKER_02 1:13

It has been, it has been an amazing experience.

Ric 1:16

Yes, yes. And we're going to dig into that deep here in a little while to find out more about what makes Christian radio such an amazing new phenomenon. But first, let's find out about Alan Mason, the man, and your your Christian journey, because we always love to find out where all this kind of came from. So um, as a as a kid, were you were you born into a Christian family? How did all that work?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

I was definitely born into a Christian family, uh church every Sunday, uh Sunday school, uh the uh little buttons that you would get from the Methodist church. Yeah. So uh yeah. Uh and uh I met a woman that I married 55 years ago on last Tuesday. Hey, hey, congratulations. That's great. Who there's an interesting byline to that too. We she was Catholic, and I was willing to become a Catholic in order to marry her because we went in and saw the priest. And the priest said, No, I don't think we're gonna do this because we don't think this will work. Wish I could find that kind now. But but yeah, uh Becky made sure that uh my wife made sure that uh I continue to go to church, and uh we tried all kinds of different churches. Uh I I will say that coming to uh Meridian, Idaho, I realized that one of the most difficult, frustrating things in life is trying to find a home church. If you walk in, you walk into a new church 15 minutes into it, you're going, oh no.

Ric 2:57

This doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah. But we're not, but we're not gonna get up and walk out. So we found a great church here that's turns out to be about 10 minutes away. Uh and I've been to my parents made sure that I understood what it meant to be a Christian and uh tried as much as possible, even during my teenage years, to keep me focused. But uh it has been a growth journey for me, uh, more than it's been one single thing. Yeah. You uh that part, you know what you and I know the each other from the radio era when I was up in Seattle and uh with King, and there was 18 years with King doing uh I was on the air, I was a general manager, I was the group program director, and and uh program director of one of the stations. So uh in those 18 years, I did a little bit of everything with them. Uh you're playing all that heathen music back then. We were my first my first job in radio was uh what was then called underground radio. So yes, it was definitely the the idea that of how Christian radio could help people on an everyday basis wasn't even in my mind at that point in time. It was work and there was going to church and there was there was being a Christian, or a Christian, yeah.

Ric 4:30

Uh there was no at this point in your life, there was no really aha Jesus moment where you recognized um a relationship with him.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

No, the person uh well uh the relationship I felt, but uh the first time it became really clear was when I was a program director in Sacramento of the Smooth Jazz Station. And at that point, there were no smooth jazz stations doing well. Um, and I was uh blessed to be in the first station to hit number 1254 and number 112 plus in the format, which launched me into a consulting career, which uh brought me to the smooth jazz station in Miami, which was a part of Paxson Communications, and who hired me and brought me in as their VP of programming. And that was uh fascinating to me because it was the first time I had seen a Christian ownership uh acting and running the organization in a in a Christian way, but he refused to do a Christian radio station. He thought they would never work. So is he around today? He he died knowing that there was a big difference that he's not not around anymore. It was uh it was really interesting. I'm 6'4, he's 6'8. So when I'm talking to him, you know, I'm like, okay. Yeah. But the first time I uh realized the active part God played in my life uh was at the smooth jazz station. It was not a nice place to work. Uh and I remember uh going to Portland and going out walking in the snow, praying, God, what do you want me to do? What should I do? I don't understand why I'm going through this. And at that moment I heard a voice and it said that I should bring other stations the success that I'd had. So I had to stop fit making fun of consultants and and uh became one. And it started out with any format, AC, rock, you know, anything that I that I knew about and enjoyed it all the time. Uh, but then more and more as stations fell off, I wound up with a core of Christian stations. Uh and it was great fun because the the people we find in Christian radio are largely very different from what you would find, say, in a rock radio station. Uh in a good way. Yeah, in a good way, absolutely in a good way. Uh and then there uh I Paxon sold to IH what's now iHeartRadio. And so I went back and did some more consulting. Uh and I did some work for the Caleb Radio Network. Uh I knew Dick Jenkins and I knew uh a couple of other people there. Mike Novak had been a friend for a while. And I honestly did not want to go there. Uh everybody knew Dick's reputation as being a hard driver and uh uh a little bit I'm in charge and you're not. Which is what frankly it took in the early days of KLF to make it successful. You had to have really strong sense, and he did. So I decided, like I have for most of the jobs, I need to pray about this. And Becky did too. We didn't really want to go back to California and did I didn't really want to get into uh a situation where Dick would be deciding my future. But the harder we prayed, the more we both knew the right thing to do was go there. So that was the time when I took a job and I really didn't know why I took it. I just knew I just knew I was directed to go there. Uh and then over the uh 19 or 20 years that I was with EMF, I kept moving up until I got uh see that would be the last five years, four or five years, was president with Mike Novak in there as the CEO. And I think we made a pretty good team. He's uh we're both radio people and uh knew that we could affect people by what we did on the radio, but never realized what you could do if you uh built a Christian radio network in that case or a Christian radio station that uh affected people in ways more than that's a great song. Uh if you've listened to Christian radio, you've heard the stories because we all have amazing stories coming in of how what happened on the radio affected them. And it it took a while for us to quit saying how what we did on the radio affected them, because it wasn't us. We put we put the pieces together for this event to happen, and it happened with them, and then working inside an environment, uh, wound up at the end with I think about 500 people, all of them Christians. It was boy, if you ever had a need, if you ever felt a need, somebody was there to serve it. Uh at EMF, the staff went in uh three times a day and prayed for our listeners.

Ric 10:41

Really? Just to qualify, EMF is the parent organization for K-Love and Air One. And they have other entities as well, but that's the that's where you worked. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

That that was at that at that point, that was what uh the Educational Media Foundation was.

Ric 10:58

Rick Hanson here talking to Alan Mason, radio executive, responsible for much of the growth of K-Love Radio in the 2000s.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

By the time I left, we had a staff of 11 pastors. Uh, their job was to take prayers from our listeners and uh talk them through the best we can, sometimes to transfer them to somebody who could help more. But that was an amazing feeling, uh, knowing that I'm going in, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna pray for these people.

Ric 11:26

And there are people back on the other building who are helping them uh grow in their faith and often overcome some sort of a crisis. Yeah, that was amazing when I was listening, when I listened to Caleb and they say, we have pastors available right now. I mean, you can call and you can talk to somebody if you've got a problem. I love that. And that goes just one dimension beyond radio's initial um purpose, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and radio, and secular radio, we want to have let them have a good time and alter their mood, maybe.

Ric 12:03

Yeah, yeah. But we're the whole concept about being a companion. One of my mentors and radio guys, and you know the name is Pat O'Day. Right. This whole concept behind radio was we're their companion in their car. Well, that's not existing really much anymore in secular radio, but it's a key element in Christian radio, if I'm right. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Uh I've done uh consulting work with a lot of uh Christian stations, and you hear uh stories over and over about how I uh write we've got a phrase for it now, right song, right time. But people would be going to work and they'd hear a song on that. I remember one woman from uh uh Houston who turned right around and went home and apologized for her to her kids for being uh angry and short when she left. Yeah, you know, tell me another radio station that causes something like that to happen. Yeah, yeah. So I I had this real benefit. You cannot work inside a creating a Christian radio station and not have your faith strengthened when you're surrounded by that, and you're people who get together all the time and do pray together and know what we're doing, and realize that all the stuff, the good stuff that's happening out there isn't really us. We're setting the stage, we're creating uh the uh situation where people can hear something that actually does change their lives.

Ric 13:40

And that mixed with the incredible lyrics of songs, you know, that are one right after the other, right after the other, with different and great messages. Most of them, by the way, seemingly pulled from Bible verses. I mean, that's kind of the theme of Christian music. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah, it you're hearing that more and more now. Uh, there have been trends in the time I've been in Christian radio, there have been trends in music that have changed. And uh about three or four years ago, it really started to drift uh towards uh praise music. And that's so you hear that much clearer now. But there were days uh in the old days where we uh played songs like Jesus Take the Wheel because it was really hard for us to look at each other and say that's not a Christian song. And you don't hear that kind of crossover much anymore, uh, because it's become more, I guess, more pure. Uh but we uh launched a praise and worship station with Air One because we saw the growth and they've had their own growth with even a little bit younger audience. And uh there are some amazing people inside that uh K-Lub and Air One building now, even though it's now in Nashville, uh, that are doing a great job, uh, especially the people that work in programming. A good portion just turned out a good portion of the people on the air are friends of mine that I'd worked with elsewhere uh somewhere else, and uh a terrific vice president of programming who keeps everybody focused on the right thing to make sure we don't get too involved in it being radio.

Ric 15:31

You want to avoid that altogether, but right so so one of the things we were touching on is music. So I wanted to I wanted to make a comparison, and I'll have to explain a little bit about what Top 40 has always done, which is they have their hot hits, you know, 10 or 15 songs that get played repetitiously through the day because they are the most liked and loved songs. And then they've got the the B songs, which are also good, but they're not as hot as the hots, and then you have a recurrence, and then you have your oldies. Is Christian radio got some kind of uh format like that?

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Almost the exact thing. The uh one of the things we saw some tremendous growth in the uh Christian radio in the 2000s and uh since. Uh, but part of that was we brought the structure that was lacking from radio, the production values. If you go back and listen to the way songs were produced in the 70s, you know, it just uh wasn't the same, didn't sound the same on the radio. So we brought those and and learned through the the music and other research we did that wow, these these people also have songs that are their favorites, then they want to hear those more than other songs. So you'd be real real comfortable sitting down with a clock and seeing what was going on. It's the same kind of thing that uh we've done for years.

Ric 17:05

Yeah. Well, that's interesting. And uh it does seem to me that they they um lean. Well, I listen to uh K Love, and I guess local radio stations kind of do different things on their own, I'm sure. But uh but the K-Love pretty much uh it seems uh really kind of um more oldies based. In other words, there's songs that I haven't heard for a long time, but they're they're they're coming back more frequently. And I love that because familiarity is what, as radio guys, we know is the magic ingredient. People want to hear songs they know, love, and can sing to. Um, and so uh, but that's what I about love about K-Love. And then all of a sudden there's a new song that comes on, and like the old top 40 days, it was wait a minute, do I like this or don't I like this? Pretty soon, it's in the mix, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah.

Ric 17:52

So that's that's amazing. So contemporary Christian radio then really was kind of the vehicle that drove the music industry, the Christian music industry. Am I right?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yep, definitely. There these trends, you know. I wish I could have answered the question, but I'd had a lot of uh of label people ask me, okay, what's the next trend? So, well, I'll I'll let you know when it gets here, because you didn't know. Uh, but it's stabilized with uh the praise and worship pretty well for some time. Uh there as uh you might expect. Caleb does a really good job of music testing. Uh there I don't know if you're familiar with the digital dial system, but I think that's see, they're using that again. And it's a little dial that the listener has in their hands. If they like the music, they turn it up. If they don't like it, they turn it down. Uh that's something that's something everybody can understand. Where with traditional music testing, one means you don't like it, two means you like it a little bit better, five means you love it, three means you're you're you don't care one way or the other. That's not how people do music. That's not they don't they don't translate like that. I love this or I don't love this. So that really helped. We put them we put the music in the hands of the listeners. And far and large, that's what they decide now.

Ric 19:22

Alan Mason, a top 40 guy, turned Christian music radio programmer. On amazing great. Is it is it K-Love uh that kind of drives uh the hit uh Christian music for the rest of the industry? Other radio stations, is it are you is it kind of the hub? Uh if it's if it's on K-Love, it's a hit kind of feeling.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, there are uh there are a little over a thousand signals for K Love now. And uh they drive a lot of sales and a lot of listenership. So uh naturally uh the labels and other radio stations pay attention to what's going on there, but everybody is uh uh doing something a little bit different. There are KLTY and uh Dallas is one of the premier radio stations that was that way forever uh in the format. And it was like I I was I remember a time when I was consulting the smooth jam station in Dallas and KLTY was a Christian station, and I kept going, how are they doing this? How does this work out? Because they always managed to be a couple of rankings ahead of us. Uh they have they would they have been one of the pioneers of the format and uh remain that way. Uh KSB J KSB J N Houston is another station that's had a great impact on that market.

Ric 20:45

You had um you had mentioned uh Mark Ramsey in our conversation prior to this, and and some had some interesting, and I thought was would be interesting to our audience to know a little bit more about uh he does Mark Ramsey is a guy who is a radio guy, but he does a ton of research. You're talking about research, he does a lot of psychographics and demographics in in Christian radio. Uh, tell me that's that story again. You you had three different kinds of categories of of Christian listeners.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, well, with uh Mark realized, well, we've got a lot of demographic information, but you know, we need to really know a little bit more about these people. So he created three psychographic categories, and I don't want to get too far into the science end of this thing, but uh you you could do that by where they naturally fall. You don't say you're gonna be here, you're gonna be here. Uh and uh it's been interesting that to me that the uh category, psychographic category called innocence has been the fastest growing of the past, say, five years. And they're the ones that are tending to not to be disaffected by church. And going to church. They're not getting what they wanted. So they're in many ways using us as church. Now, we would prefer that they also go to church and establish a church. Uh but you're not going to force anybody to do that. So it's been interesting finding out that those people that we would all say are Christians are quite different. There's also a category that is a self-identified Christian. So they've said, yes, I am a Christian. But because of their responses to uh the questions, uh, they're in a category called the hopeless. They are they are more uh uh spiritual than they are Christian, but they self-identify as Christians. So I still don't know what. And the third category is called the faithful, and I think that probably says it all. They do have a home church, they do go to church regularly, they are involved in in uh small groups, uh as deeply as involved as you can imagine. Uh the people in the middle who get their faith fed from radio are really important to us. And uh it's quite a responsibility when you think about it when you're doing the programming for a station like that, that you can change uh their lives by what you play and what you say. And I can't say that about any other format I've ever been in.

Ric 23:39

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's incredible. So um we uh we had Mark Ramsey on as a guest on Amazing Greats at one point, and he kind of helped us uh walk through some of that stuff. But uh so so so the superstars uh of Christian music uh kind of evolved over the last decade, two decades, three decades. Um, as I mentioned to you, and and we all know it's true, is when I was going to church at a Catholic church, it was all about hymns and gospel songs sung by the choir. And for me to walk into a contemporary church and hear the hits, if you will, uh was life-changing for me because now all of a sudden this became relevant. I mean, this is this is stuff that I I I loved and wanted to believe, and it was being sung to me in a great way. So so um I guess the question is, is how do they there's there's a lot of artists out there. How do some of the artists differentiate themselves by becoming kind of the superstars, if you will? The Chris Tomlins and the Toby Max and the Lauren Daigles. Um what separates them from the rest of the pack?

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Uh well, a lot of it has to do with their the messages and their songs. You know, there's three really good, strong praise and worship type people here. But you've also got Frick King and Country, who I th I think is probably the leading uh musical group right now, who are just brilliant at expressing their faith in different ways. Uh in ways that, you know, uh I don't know how familiar you are their music, but burn the ships down. Uh you can't go back. The ships are gone. You can't go back once you started down this path. So there are a lot of uh really, really strong artists that have developed over the years. Uh and uh you don't see a lot of them fading, you see uh uh a lot of them trying different styles of music, uh, all in the Christian realm. And some works and some doesn't. But yeah, the consistent people have been around for a while.

Ric 25:46

Yeah, yeah. And I I I was I was wondering if if you know the the value of the live concerts in their stardom. Is uh did the live concerts come first and then super stardom, or does super stardom come first and then they started doing concerts? I think what happens on the radio drives concerts.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Because you know, frankly, there would nobody would know about them unless it was happening on the radio. Uh and uh some are uh they come out, they sing the song, and it's a beautiful song, they uh uh express the emotion. And if you've ever seen for King and Country, they put on a show that's worthy of any rock band you've ever known. It's just brilliant the way they do that.

Ric 26:34

Oh, I know, and the their percussion section, and um you know the the two the the kind of the concept of the two brothers that are to Australian brothers that are here just making big waves in Christian radio in in America is is a great story as well. But yes, I love it. Yeah, so uh and Toby Mack is kind of an innovative force in Christian music, has been for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Uh and uh yeah, he he went through some hard times too uh when his son died, uh for example. Uh and he read it out in his music, he expressed what he was feeling in his music, but he's always for somebody's uh but I don't want to say what he age he is now, but yeah.

Ric 27:24

He's in his 40s or something, probably, huh?

SPEAKER_02 27:26

He's late late 40s, early 50s, something yeah, we don't want anybody telling our age, so let's keep his down. Yeah, he's one of the coolest and hippest people in the format. And he just yeah, he just is and has been for as long as I can remember him being in the format. So he ables he he's able to break some barriers that you wouldn't find, and he does uh reach younger people. Well, I don't know if anyone's discussed anything like this with you, but uh younger people are having a uh Christian radio is having a hard time reaching younger people because they're spread out on their own new media. So if you want to know who the audience is, it's generally baby boomers. And they're the they're the ones that are the huge fans. Uh if you have a successful station, you find out that about 25% of your people produce 75 to 80 percent of your quarter hours. So wow, interesting. Interesting format. It's not a Q-driven format, it's a fan-driven format.

Ric 28:34

Which means they listen longer, not more people, but they always listen longer because they're huge fans.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

They're at your promotions, they're on your telephone, they're not passive about their Christian radio stations.

Ric 28:47

We're hearing the inside radio journey of Alan Mason and the phenomenon of Christian radio and music, the falling seemingly uh by research, the falling away of young people from Christianity, whether it's attendance at church or whatever. And what you've just said kind of supports that, although they may not be radio guys or gals, but they may be Christian guys or gals who are listening to it on Pandora or Spotify or one of the streaming services. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah, Spotify does a really good job. And uh they're uh there's a they have a great Christian uh section there with styles of Christian music that you would never thought of you would have heard of. So uh it all works together. They are they are uh reaching a somewhat younger audience, but the older audience at the same time. Uh you and I grew up in the radio era, and radio will always be our preferred uh media. Yeah. Millennials and and Gen Z didn't. They grew up in a they're digital natives, they're not people who had to learn how to work a computer. I don't know how it works that uh I have a uh a three-year-old great-granddaughter who already knows how to work the iPhone and play games on it. It's very different. And uh radio companies are gonna need to address that and realize that they need to create media for that generation rather than trying to talk that generation into listening to radio.

Ric 30:25

Yeah. Well, and I think part of the uh issue too is that well, part of the downside to uh a streaming service as opposed to what you're talking about, a K Love and Air One, is that they don't get the companion uh along with the music, which is uh like we're talking about, is a powerful ingredient in what Christian radio is. And I don't know that they'll ever be able to really do that in a streaming scenario. Maybe they can somewhere along the line, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Um yeah, there will be relevant, there will be uh hosts, announcers, whatever you want to call them, that are relevant to that audience and they will get attention. Uh it's really hard to be everything to everybody. Exactly. The uh culturally, uh I don't know if you're how were you or Barna Researcher, if you had anybody from Barna on here, but no uh they do a lot of research in the Christian world, and right now there's a lot of worry about pastors uh that are stuck in I'm not sure what to say, because if I say the wrong thing, they're gonna be mad, and I say another wrong thing, they're gonna be mad. Uh and then the Christian nationalists are gonna get mad at everything I say, and we're losing pastors going off to other types of work because they don't know how to overcome the division that it's not only in America, but it's also in their churches.

Ric 31:55

Well, that was one of my other cultural questions. Um, and you you you're beating me to all my questions before I even get there. Uh, that was one of my other questions, which was um, what about the political uh nature of Christianity today? It seems like there's this like um just like in the overall culture, there's a split, there's a divide between conservative Christians and the more liberal Christians. Do you sense that that's true? And what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Yeah, it has become largely conservative. Uh and that's what happened to Jesus Take the Wheel, is because it was not by a Christian artist, it's about an artist who mayhaps has done some things that they shouldn't have. Uh and uh they've been ruled out. So the conservative end has a lot of control right now of what's going on on Christian radio. Uh if you've been in this situation before, you say the wrong thing on the radio, and somebody will call you and tell you all about it. And they have that in spades uh if they happen to trip into the law wrong area. Now, if you start in a biblical sense, Jesus was really big on saying, love everybody. Love as you love me, love others. By doing so, that's how you'll be you'll become known as my followers. So there's a real dichotomy there. Yeah. Uh, because you can't go on the radio and say you love everyone without fielding a lot of calls. They're gonna wind up turning into something bigger, turning this into something bigger and a boycott, a protest. So it's a tough, it's a much tougher place uh to be now than it was six or seven years ago.

Ric 33:50

Yeah. Well, you come from a a group of heathens that uh started all of this contemporary Christian radio stuff, including one of our my prior guests, which was Bob Anthony. Oh, Bob is Bob had great influence on me, yeah. Yeah, and he uh and then and Mike Novak, you've already mentioned Mike Novak is so it's kind of the three amigos that were uh top 40 um uh formerly and then went to Christian radio and kind of brought top 40 with them in a lot of ways. Um the quick uh so Bob was a guest, and he was, I guess, the guy who originally started uh what what what is now K-Love because he switched, left KFRC, a hot top 40 radio station, out of the blue with a call from God, and decided to make one little radio station a Christian station with a with a contemporary format. And then it's grown sub substantially from there. And you were a part of he was maybe a part of the beginning, you were definitely a part of the explosion in the 2000s.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah, there's another name there called David Pierce. David is uh uh chief of media now of uh K Love and Air One, and he was at KLTY in the beginning, and he is one of the true pioneers of the format who's still in there and still going. I don't know if you've heard of a guy named John Frost, but John is the premier Christian radio consultant, and he also has had a huge impact on the format and uh the people who are programming today. So we need to keep those uh those people around. Uh and I keep poking them a little bit about hey, uh, who's your replacement? You have to realize you won't be, you know, it's biblical too. You won't be around forever.

Ric 35:44

Yeah. So you are um you are one of the ones that have decided to sit on the retirement couch in beautiful Meridian, Idaho, uh, and now sitting there and kind of observing what would be the one thing you might tell a young program director who is, you know, running a radio station in Iowa or um someone in Bellingham, uh is there is there a tip you'd give them? Is there something that you would say, this is this is important?

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Yeah, it's uh it's something an old friend named Tommy Kramer uh has said and be the moon, not the sun. So reflect, reflect what you're hearing from your listeners. Don't try to be the thing that changes the listeners' minds. Reflect what they're doing. Uh, there are a lot of people who think in Christian radio, we need to do more, we need to get them into church. We need to, well, I'm not sure that was our job. Uh I think our job is setting the stage. Uh, and let's not forget that what while what we do is important is let's leave some room for Jesus in there too, because he's the one who really makes the change on the people outside the audience.

Ric 36:58

Speaking of a great metaphor, there's you know, that's the metaphor for for Jesus himself. For us, is he's the sun. We're just we're the moon. We're we're hopefully reflecting what he's all about. So totally, totally love that. How about a God wink? Something along the line you said, oh, if you already mentioned a couple, but maybe uh uh if you have any others, God really showed up this time.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

I mean, this is craziness right here. Well, this is a this is an oddball thing for a radio person. I gave three years notice on my retirement, and uh that was spurred by what I felt. There's the message I got is there's a time to leave. There's a time and a season for things, there's a time to leave, there's a time to let other younger people come in and learn and do the same way you did. So it was an odd retirement in that I didn't leave uh going, finally, I'm I'm free, I can do whatever I want. And uh I also uh I wasn't inordinately sad. Uh I still do a few projects uh and I don't talk about the stations I do them with. It's that's not important. The fact that they get better is important, but yeah, I'm largely retired. Uh I took my second two-week vacation just last week. I've only done that twice in my life. When you're you can't do it when you're in radio, a week is a long time, and I've got to get back and see what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

It's changed it. Uh it's my wife and and uh several grandchildren and several great grandchildren are the center of our lives right now. But as you have done, you can't really totally get away from radio. Yeah, you can't get away from what you've done all your life.

Ric 38:58

My podcast is my release here.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

That's a great idea, too. It's a good one. You're right on the leading edge of uh a very important way to reach younger people.

Ric 39:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, coolness. This has been a great conversation. You are um, you know, one of those guys who everybody I talk to in radio says, Oh, yeah, I know Alan Mason, you know, and especially in in the Christian realm, but also in secular. Uh, and so it's just a real honor to be able to chat with you and to get your story and to find out a whole lot more about Christian radio than we knew before. So thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

And I I thank you for for the opportunity. And I don't know this, you know, everybody else doesn't know this. You and I worked in the same market and never met in that market, but we knew each other.

Ric 39:44

And we competed, we competed against each other.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Yeah.

Ric 39:47

Um, for those who are local in our area, uh, Alan was right at the helm of King Radio when they were top 40. And I was across the street at KJR at the time. And so yeah, we knew the names of one another, but didn't really know each other back then.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

And I'm glad to see that we're both doing Christian things as we get to this stage in our lives.

Ric 40:08

Yeah, and we're both still alive. Yeah. Thank you, Alan. Have a great rest of your day and a great weekend. And um, we'll have our this published shortly. Uh again, God bless. Thank you. Thank you. No problem at all. Great conversation with Alan Mason, our guest on Amazing Greats. Thanks for tuning in. My name's Rick Hansen. Remember to hit subscribe, hit like, share with your friends, and we'll see you back here again on Amazing Greats on the next episode. God bless.