TLN president: Positive
connections help reach audiences
By Edward Terry, The Layman, December 9, 2009
AURORA, Ill. – Making a meaningful connection is the key to the future of Christian media, according to Jerry Rose, president and CEO of Chicago’s Total Living Network (TLN). And with more than 40 years in broadcasting, Rose knows how to reach an audience.
Total Living Network president and CEO Jerry Rose
His comments come as the Christian media, which includes publishers, broadcasters and music producers, is facing tough times and waning support. Yet Rose, whose network beams Christian programming and entertainment coast to coast, is hopeful for the future.
“All of us are having to refocus and look at what we’re doing,” he said. “To some degree it’s good because you get back to the simple things you started with.”
In the face of tough times for non-profit ministries, like TLN, Rose sees inspiration as the best strategy for meeting the challenge. Rose recognizes that society is more connected than ever through social networking and handheld mobile devices. Yet it’s becoming more disconnected because people aren’t as physically close as they once were.
“You never see them; you never touch each other,” he said.
Yet the same technology that’s creating concerns for traditional communicators is also helping them find new audiences. TLN already has begun embracing the changing face of broadcast through the Internet, Rose said.
“Anybody in the world can watch us 24 hours a day,” he said.
With more methods of delivery – including television programming – available today than ever before, there’s no limiting an inspirational message. The letters he receives from Pakistan are the only proof Rose needs. Yet delivering the message isn’t enough, he said. It has to be a message that inspires people.
Rose is focusing on content quality to accomplish that goal. Rather than just producing “preaching programs,” TLN is focusing on outside-the-box programming. One example is documentary content.
One of TLN’s most popular shows is “Encounters of the Unexplained,” which is now syndicated internationally. At least half the programs deal with Biblical topics, Rose said.
Another production that Rose considers a success was “Acts of Mercy,” a documentary by Bill Kurtis who is best known as a CBS News anchor and host of A&E programs “Cold Case Files” and “American Justice.”
The award-winning documentary focuses on the Mercy Ships ministry, which brings doctors on a floating hospital to Third World ports. The documentary takes viewers aboard the ship where physicians remove tumors and repair cleft palates. Even though it’s a Christian story inspired by Jesus Christ’s mercy, it’s something that can inspire non-believers as well.
“We look at it and say ‘how do we get a broader scope of the audience?’” Rose said. “One of the things I’m trying to do there is somehow in the secular marketplace reach people who would say to you ‘I don’t know if I believe in God; God’s not relevant to me’ and to somehow reach that person with a show that’s not in your face at all … but just to help people to come to a point to say ‘I really need to think about God in my life,’ because sooner or later you’re going to need Him.”
TLN has owned and operated stations in California, Illinois and Nevada, and an affiliate group of more than 160 Christian stations nationwide. TLN produces and delivers Biblically-based programs via broadcast, cable, digital and satellite.
Rose is the writer and host of “Journey,” a Biblically-based teaching program. He also hosts the interview program “On Screen,” which features celebrities candidly talking about their fame, fortune, family and faith. Rose and his wife Shirley together host “Significant Living,” a popular series for the senior viewing audience.