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How’s 96.9 KAYO doin, the rest in South Sound?

DavidEduardo said:
I remember a case of a small station that "paid" $80,000 more or less for a Pinto back when there were new Pintos...
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When we bought one of our stations back in the day, the previous owner had racked up almost $90K in trade. He traded gas for his car, traded for house cleaning, traded for electrical work, and yard care services. All of it at 8-10X. Problem was, in order to maintain local relationships in a smaller market, we needed to honor those crappy trade deals even though we never benefitted from them. It amounted to inventory that we couldn't make anything from until the contracts ran out.
His sales guy didn't care, because he was getting a commission on the dollar value of the trade, and 10X trade for a potential advertiser was an easy sale. That came to a grinding halt on our watch.
 
Kelly A said:
Having built a station in Thurston County years ago, I don't doubt it. This whole thinking that 'we're number one in Thurston County' amounts to nothing. Advertisers don't just buy because you're number one. They buy because they're renewing an existing business relationship, or they see a direct conversion from their advertising dollar spent, to two or more dollars of revenue in the door. If the station can't deliver that conversion on a regular basis, the advertiser will take the much easier (and cheaper) approach of buying ads on social media sites or direct mail where ads are sold as impressions, not :30 or :60 spots. Many small market stations try to keep the client around by doing stupid-multiple trade deals trying to count it as revenue. Trade is death.
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Been there and done that. Most of the businesses I walked into looked at me like I was insane for even trying to approach them in the first place. I understand where they're coming from, though. If I walked in there with a special pen that I wanted to sell them, they could look at it, hold it in their hand, and then decide if they want it or not. With radio advertising, you're selling them on an idea. It doesn't matter what documents you bring with you to justify your position, most business owners aren't receptive.

I did know a few salespeople who made a decent living. With that being said, they spent more of their time managing their existing accounts than they spent out in the field "prospecting." The salespeople who were good prospectors belonged to various social groups, and had connections throughout the region that helped them drum up some business.

If I recall, I worked as a salesman for about one month. Halfway through I began to realize it was an uphill battle that I probably wasn't going to win. I saw quite a few salespeople come and go over the years. I assume there are still people out there that want to try selling advertising, because people continue to try it.
 
fordranger797 said:
I did know a few salespeople who made a decent living. With that being said, they spent more of their time managing their existing accounts than they spent out in the field "prospecting." The salespeople who were good prospectors belonged to various social groups, and had connections throughout the region that helped them drum up some business.
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A successful AE will be good at both renewals and growth prospecting. Problem is; with an area like Thurston County, there are only so many new businesses to prospect. And these days renewals are at prior rate, or less. Either that, or many bonus spots get thrown in to match what they would spend on social media. So what you end up with is praying you can hold on by your fingertips to the long-standing clients.
fordranger797 said:
If I recall, I worked as a salesman for about one month. Halfway through I began to realize it was an uphill battle that I probably wasn't going to win. I saw quite a few salespeople come and go over the years. I assume there are still people out there that want to try selling advertising, because people continue to try it.
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Like you say, the ones who have established client relationships are your golden egg-laying goose. Since 2008, the goose is laying eggs of diminishing sizes.
 
boombox4 said:
And Seattle area FMs already reach the area well.
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There really isn’t a real need for any radio stations in Olympia, but I’m sure glad that they’re there. They provide some local content and give listeners an alternative to the Seattle radio dial. It’s a privilege that should not be abused, though. It’s a delicate ecosystem down there and anybody else trying to sneak in could result in mutually assured destruction.
 
fordranger797 said:
It’s too bad that 96.9 doesn’t subscribe, because it would be fun to see how they perform. Truly, KAYO is a very good station. They’ve got a great mixture of music, an excellent lineup of programming, and a local feel. Not to mention, their signal covers the south sound pretty well. It’s not going to make much of a dent in the the PPM (as the contour only hits a small portion of the market), but I suspect they do better than some would think.

I’d be willing to bet that a lot of country listeners in the south sound listen to both 100.7 and 96.9.
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Even smaller market stations like these all over America do get ratings. Not as often as the major market statioins but it should not be hard to look at YOY numbers. That's all you need to know. Pretty sure that would lead to stronger sales / station being sold out - even in a smaller market.
 
PB Randolf said:
Even smaller market stations like these all over America do get ratings. Not as often as the major market statioins but it should not be hard to look at YOY numbers. That's all you need to know. Pretty sure that would lead to stronger sales / station being sold out - even in a smaller market.
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In most of the places ive worked.. nope. Its built on relationships and boots on the ground results.
 
Kelly A said:
I agree. In smaller markets, any sort of ratings don't have the direct impact to revenue.
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I worked in NW PA for 97.5 WDDH for 4 years, we showed in the Olean, NY arbitrons.. and better then some in market stations and we were like 40-50 miles away.... and it never did a thing for us except a few state/national/regional agency type buys.. which werent a ton of our business
 
Small local businesses don’t seem to care what specific breakdowns of your ratings are. You can go into any small business, give them a general idea of who your target demographics are, and most likely they’ll be satisfied with that. It’s a smaller town, so they’ll already know if you have listeners or not.

All of this may not matter at all, as they probably aren’t going to buy anything anyway lol.
 
fordranger797 said:
Small local businesses don’t seem to care what specific breakdowns of your ratings are. You can go into any small business, give them a general idea of who your target demographics are, and most likely they’ll be satisfied with that. It’s a smaller town, so they’ll already know if you have listeners or not.

All of this may not matter at all, as they probably aren’t going to buy anything anyway lol.
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I think I've read here on RD before comments from guys like B Turner that when it comes to advertising, the smaller town busineses go by what works. If the radio ad campaign or spots boost their business, they continue with it. If it's working, the ratings would probably matter less. The target demos probably would matter, though.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
In most of the places ive worked.. nope. Its built on relationships and boots on the ground results.
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And that is how lower rated stations sell, too.

Ratings based buys mostly benefit higher rated stations, and those numbers are used mostly by ad agencies. Local accounts... smaller merchants and service providers... use the cash register as a ratings device.
 
Sunny 102.1 on 105.7 would also count in the ratings though they probably wouldn't be the top station in the South Sound due to its signal getting weaker near Parkland and Tacoma. They are the top station in Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties though with Y107.3 probably being in the mid rankings or Top 10.
 
fordranger797 said:
There really isn’t a real need for any radio stations in Olympia, but I’m sure glad that they’re there. They provide some local content and give listeners an alternative to the Seattle radio dial. It’s a privilege that should not be abused, though. It’s a delicate ecosystem down there and anybody else trying to sneak in could result in mutually assured destruction.
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The Seattle stations do reach well there but past Olympia, they all start to get staticky even more than they were in Olympia.
 
JackindaBox said:
Sunny 102.1 on 105.7 would also count in the ratings though they probably wouldn't be the top station in the South Sound due to its signal getting weaker near Parkland and Tacoma. They are the top station in Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties though with Y107.3 probably being in the mid rankings or Top 10.
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The issue here is that the market in the south sound is already split, and the introduction of another station would really impact the current balance. If you were to add Sunny in the mix, there are implications for 94.5 and 96.1.
 
JackindaBox said:
Sunny 102.1 on 105.7 would also count in the ratings though they probably wouldn't be the top station in the South Sound due to its signal getting weaker near Parkland and Tacoma. They are the top station in Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties though with Y107.3 probably being in the mid rankings or Top 10.
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Really? How do you know they're the "Top station"?
 
fordranger797 said:
The issue here is that the market in the south sound is already split, and the introduction of another station would really impact the current balance. If you were to add Sunny in the mix, there are implications for 94.5 and 96.1.
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But it's ultimately who plays Christmas music around the holidays that make the difference.. ;)
 
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