WAVO asks for donations to maintain radio format
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/20...s-for-donations-to-maintain.html#.U7atAPldXL9
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/20...s-for-donations-to-maintain.html#.U7atAPldXL9
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WAVO asks for donations to maintain radio format
- Thread starter mvcg66b3r
- Start date
I saw this in the actual paper but not online. They did it!
They're doing it again, and this time they're setting the goal high enough that they can have a web broadcast again if they meet it.
While I appreciate Tom Gentry keeping standards on WAVO this sort of tactic is a turn off. In the morning I don't hear music, it's their lame talk show. I work during the day so the only time I might hear something is in the afternoon. In the winter I might only hear them for a few minutes before they go to their night time flea power.
They should try selling more advertising. One of the other radio boards wants people to contribute money. Quite awhile back a popular air check site went to a paid system and so did yet another radio news site. My pockets aren't that deep and I have no desire to fund someone else's commercial business without owning stock in it.
Have you ever seen the typical radio station owner? I would say all of them have a higher standard of living than I do. Maybe they could give me some money.
They should try selling more advertising. One of the other radio boards wants people to contribute money. Quite awhile back a popular air check site went to a paid system and so did yet another radio news site. My pockets aren't that deep and I have no desire to fund someone else's commercial business without owning stock in it.
Have you ever seen the typical radio station owner? I would say all of them have a higher standard of living than I do. Maybe they could give me some money.
That isn't the point. They're providing a service you might want. If that service is valuable to you, then you should pay for it. It's the same business model that this country is based on.
You don't have to pay. You don't have to listen. But if you do, and it appeals to you, shouldn't you be willing to at least TIP them for the job they do?
Mr. Gentry says there is a "myriad" of expenses of running a station. I can understand that, being in the biz 25+ yrs. myself. But, does it cost $15K for BMI music licensing fees each yr? I remember filling out the forms each year. Does it really cost $3K to audio stream a station? He probably doesn't have that much overhead, as Bill Bennett's "Morning In America" might even be free (I know you used to have to pay Howard Stern to be on your station but you don't have to pay Rush Limbaugh) & the rest of the day is automated. The AM show & SRN (Salem Radio Network) news have national spots, so I agree w/Mike that they should have more local ads. Why should we pay for it? That's the way Radio stations, TV & newspapers have always made $ - by ads. I love WAVO!
Because if you want a radio station that does what you want, you should pay for it. Selling ads is an expense. Hiring a sales staff costs money. A 5K AM station can't charge a premium price like an FM station. A format that attracts listeners who are over 55 isn't in high demand from advertisers. So they will probably have to sell more ads, which is more clutter, and those ads will all be of the 1-800 variety. After a while, listening to that gets tiring.
It sounds like you don't know all the expenses involved in running a radio station. $3k for streaming is cheap. And there's really no revenue in streaming. It's all expense. People are going to have to learn to pay for radio, because the competition for advertising is far greater than it once was.
I have been in the trenches trying to sell stations like this. Let me educate you a bit: every ad agency, even where the buyer is a close friend, have zero dollars. That means every business with any significant ad budget is run through an agency. Agencies say no. That's true when you are seemingly a perfect match. The small mom and pop businesses will buy. The trouble is they can only spend about $200 a month, maybe $300 and they do not renew. If you are lucky, maybe 1 in 10 or 20 will stay on. It still takes the 5 to 8 visits to sell them, easily getting down to minimum wage or less and your car mileage is a tax write off.
Why? Mom and Pop businesses tend to be single location businesses meaning all their customers come from their trade area which is usually a few miles from their door. When you have so few listeners that you cannot make an impact in their primary trade area, they don't buy again. Remember the advertised product might not be needed that day, week or month. You don't call that plumber advertising on the station today because you heard their spot but rather when you need a plumber. So, the reach might be a hundred or so, maybe a few hundred, but how many need the advertised product at that very moment?
I can see you thinking what about the products that cater to older demographics? They go to TV and maybe print because they have a guaranteed reach. With poor, if any ratings, you are not an efficient buy. So, sell more Moms and Pops, right? You can, if you can survive on so little money, not to mention the copy writing, production and logging of spots. We used a telemarketer to find them. I put a 1,000 miles a week on my car. All said and done, I spent more than my commission getting the sale. Luckily I had a base salary that covered my living expenses and then some.
Running a radio station has tons of hidden costs. Most populated areas sell land by the square foot. We have about 10 acres, over a million bucks in land alone. Property taxes are about 3% a year. The FCC makes us have a second employee. Electric runs up to $5,000 a month. Add the lease for the office. Add matching social security and workman's comp even though we never had a claim. Add taxes out the wazoo on things like a sign saying what you are outside your door. Then music licensing fees (SESAC's low end for our market is $300 a month and we don't play any SESAC songs but it is easier to pay than be challenged and have to defend ourselves...and they're the cheapest of the three). Did I mention the annual spectrum fee you pay the FCC? How about the contract engineer that wants $2,000 a month to come out if you go off? Sure you share him with several stations, but you need a way to stay legal and get back on the air by tomorrow if something happens. And when lightning hits your station, you had better have the reserve on hand. Don't count on insurance.
And if you think the owner of such a station is rich, you're right. You have to be rich to be able to handle the investment. You can bet they have other businesses, at least one, that gives them an income while they lose or barely scrape by with the station. Why do they do it? In theory, a radio station, even on AM and even a daytime only, has value that far exceeds its potential because there are only a limited number of stations on the dial. Before the crash in 2008, we had offers up to 7 million for a station billing $35,000 a month and just scraping by. It was at the same time another local owner billing about $40,000 a month sold his AM with flea powered nighttime for $8 million. Sadly the same station might sell at 2 million today if you are really lucky.
So, you might gripe about them asking listeners for money but let me ask you what you would do? Sell more spots or ask for some cash from listeners? It costs very few dollars to compose and produce that spot and the full time in the office employee can collect the checks and visit the bank. Do you hire new salespeople, pay them a salary and hope you can beat reality? Oh, you say, just give them commission? Let me ask you how many jobs you have accepted that give you no salary. Ever had any friends sell those multi-level products and quit because the money for the time spent was just not worth it? Selling radio is just like that. Your miles on your car and the other associated expenses come out of your commission Most commission only salespeople don't last a week. So, if there's a new person each week, how do you build relationships with business owners? Let's turn that around: If you had a new financial planner for your retirement every week, would you stick with that firm? And by the way, when they don't get paid except when they sell and collect the check, they are not going to feel guilty stealing something from the station to pawn in order to eat. When you're so close to living under a bridge, you'd be amazed at what you'll do to stay afloat. That brings up another interesting point: the person that applies for the commission only sales job is typically a person that cannot get hired elsewhere because of a criminal record, very fringe lifestyle or substance abuse issue. A good salesperson is already successful elsewhere and making plenty of money so they'd laugh at your offer of commission only.
Finally some real numbers: When I arrived at the station we were billing $6,000 and expenses were $15,000 a month. Selling more spots got us to $15,000 monthly a year later and a monthly expense of $22,500. I changed the format after a year. We were scraping the bottom and I even explored trying to join with a local want ad paper to run a Tradio format full-time where you got an ad in print and on our station for a fee each week. We looked in to a 976 number where listeners could record on an answering machine what they had for sale. I even explored the shopping format done in Maine and Jacksonville at the time where you sold product on the air at a discount and that business got ads for product to sell in lieu of cash. I figured there were enough people that were the garage sale/2nd hand/bargain seeking shoppers and we'd benefit from a known print publication promoting us to save on promoting the station. So, you might say we were willing to try anything to get the billing we needed. And yes, my boss had money. He had to to cover the losses.
Why? Mom and Pop businesses tend to be single location businesses meaning all their customers come from their trade area which is usually a few miles from their door. When you have so few listeners that you cannot make an impact in their primary trade area, they don't buy again. Remember the advertised product might not be needed that day, week or month. You don't call that plumber advertising on the station today because you heard their spot but rather when you need a plumber. So, the reach might be a hundred or so, maybe a few hundred, but how many need the advertised product at that very moment?
I can see you thinking what about the products that cater to older demographics? They go to TV and maybe print because they have a guaranteed reach. With poor, if any ratings, you are not an efficient buy. So, sell more Moms and Pops, right? You can, if you can survive on so little money, not to mention the copy writing, production and logging of spots. We used a telemarketer to find them. I put a 1,000 miles a week on my car. All said and done, I spent more than my commission getting the sale. Luckily I had a base salary that covered my living expenses and then some.
Running a radio station has tons of hidden costs. Most populated areas sell land by the square foot. We have about 10 acres, over a million bucks in land alone. Property taxes are about 3% a year. The FCC makes us have a second employee. Electric runs up to $5,000 a month. Add the lease for the office. Add matching social security and workman's comp even though we never had a claim. Add taxes out the wazoo on things like a sign saying what you are outside your door. Then music licensing fees (SESAC's low end for our market is $300 a month and we don't play any SESAC songs but it is easier to pay than be challenged and have to defend ourselves...and they're the cheapest of the three). Did I mention the annual spectrum fee you pay the FCC? How about the contract engineer that wants $2,000 a month to come out if you go off? Sure you share him with several stations, but you need a way to stay legal and get back on the air by tomorrow if something happens. And when lightning hits your station, you had better have the reserve on hand. Don't count on insurance.
And if you think the owner of such a station is rich, you're right. You have to be rich to be able to handle the investment. You can bet they have other businesses, at least one, that gives them an income while they lose or barely scrape by with the station. Why do they do it? In theory, a radio station, even on AM and even a daytime only, has value that far exceeds its potential because there are only a limited number of stations on the dial. Before the crash in 2008, we had offers up to 7 million for a station billing $35,000 a month and just scraping by. It was at the same time another local owner billing about $40,000 a month sold his AM with flea powered nighttime for $8 million. Sadly the same station might sell at 2 million today if you are really lucky.
So, you might gripe about them asking listeners for money but let me ask you what you would do? Sell more spots or ask for some cash from listeners? It costs very few dollars to compose and produce that spot and the full time in the office employee can collect the checks and visit the bank. Do you hire new salespeople, pay them a salary and hope you can beat reality? Oh, you say, just give them commission? Let me ask you how many jobs you have accepted that give you no salary. Ever had any friends sell those multi-level products and quit because the money for the time spent was just not worth it? Selling radio is just like that. Your miles on your car and the other associated expenses come out of your commission Most commission only salespeople don't last a week. So, if there's a new person each week, how do you build relationships with business owners? Let's turn that around: If you had a new financial planner for your retirement every week, would you stick with that firm? And by the way, when they don't get paid except when they sell and collect the check, they are not going to feel guilty stealing something from the station to pawn in order to eat. When you're so close to living under a bridge, you'd be amazed at what you'll do to stay afloat. That brings up another interesting point: the person that applies for the commission only sales job is typically a person that cannot get hired elsewhere because of a criminal record, very fringe lifestyle or substance abuse issue. A good salesperson is already successful elsewhere and making plenty of money so they'd laugh at your offer of commission only.
Finally some real numbers: When I arrived at the station we were billing $6,000 and expenses were $15,000 a month. Selling more spots got us to $15,000 monthly a year later and a monthly expense of $22,500. I changed the format after a year. We were scraping the bottom and I even explored trying to join with a local want ad paper to run a Tradio format full-time where you got an ad in print and on our station for a fee each week. We looked in to a 976 number where listeners could record on an answering machine what they had for sale. I even explored the shopping format done in Maine and Jacksonville at the time where you sold product on the air at a discount and that business got ads for product to sell in lieu of cash. I figured there were enough people that were the garage sale/2nd hand/bargain seeking shoppers and we'd benefit from a known print publication promoting us to save on promoting the station. So, you might say we were willing to try anything to get the billing we needed. And yes, my boss had money. He had to to cover the losses.
I doubt anyone is making money from WAVO.
There is one way to sell more advertising, but it will never happen.
WSAT in Salisbury has a more oldies-leaning format with more AC as well, especially when it goes local, which is mostly on the morning show. But it is pretty much the same target audience if you listen to those who say we who like this music are too old.
Why it appears to be more successful (some hours there is very little advertising, though) is its status as a community radio station. Salisbury had two of those but now the Catawba College Foundation owns both of them. And I can't tell that the other one is still successful as a community station. Rock Hill is somewhat larger than Salisbury but it has a very successful community radio station. And WRHI isn't going anywhere. It might be possible to try to compete that way, but keeping the studio in Charlotte won't help. Besides, they tried having a Concord community station with WTIX--and except for an online station, that was Concord's only community station--and that didn't work.
WSAT in Salisbury has a more oldies-leaning format with more AC as well, especially when it goes local, which is mostly on the morning show. But it is pretty much the same target audience if you listen to those who say we who like this music are too old.
Why it appears to be more successful (some hours there is very little advertising, though) is its status as a community radio station. Salisbury had two of those but now the Catawba College Foundation owns both of them. And I can't tell that the other one is still successful as a community station. Rock Hill is somewhat larger than Salisbury but it has a very successful community radio station. And WRHI isn't going anywhere. It might be possible to try to compete that way, but keeping the studio in Charlotte won't help. Besides, they tried having a Concord community station with WTIX--and except for an online station, that was Concord's only community station--and that didn't work.
In smaller markets the format might do pretty well. The trick is being in a place where the Mom and Pop businesses buy through direct contact with the station's sales staff. It makes a reasonable use of an AM/FM combo in certain situations. I know one guy in a small market (50,000 in the county). His FM is Country and his AM is a mix of what would be called MOR in the 1960s and Beautiful music combined. He sells TAP 30 second spots on the FM at $6 but for 50 cents more per spot you get a matching schedule on the AM too. Buy TAP 30s on the AM only for $1. (TAP is Total Audience Plan...for him: 25% AM Drive; 25% Midday; 25% Afternoon Drive and 25% Evenings). The AM is totally automated and 'watched' by the FM staff. Needless to say, the AM pulls its weight because of how they sell it as a combo versus separately.
In larger markets where agencies place buys on behalf of businesses they have as clients, you'll never be on the buy sheet but the informercial companies will call to place buys. And you grit your teeth when you say yes to them because you know your audience won't like you stopping the music but that order means you can meet payroll.
The problem is the format usually does so poorly financially in larger markets. When you have 60 or more stations on the dial and you're a AM station, maybe without full market coverage, you have few options and that makes you consider the format. In short, nobody will steal it from you (a real threat when several stations are hungry for billing and think you might be making it with the format) and it might be one of the few formats not done in the market. It is relatively cheap to run compared to other formats.
I hope WAVO pulls this off and pioneers a model for listeners supporting what they want to hear on radio. With such a format, I'm sure convincing listeners to support the station is easier than selling commercials in a large market scenario.
In larger markets where agencies place buys on behalf of businesses they have as clients, you'll never be on the buy sheet but the informercial companies will call to place buys. And you grit your teeth when you say yes to them because you know your audience won't like you stopping the music but that order means you can meet payroll.
The problem is the format usually does so poorly financially in larger markets. When you have 60 or more stations on the dial and you're a AM station, maybe without full market coverage, you have few options and that makes you consider the format. In short, nobody will steal it from you (a real threat when several stations are hungry for billing and think you might be making it with the format) and it might be one of the few formats not done in the market. It is relatively cheap to run compared to other formats.
I hope WAVO pulls this off and pioneers a model for listeners supporting what they want to hear on radio. With such a format, I'm sure convincing listeners to support the station is easier than selling commercials in a large market scenario.
Again with a morning talk show and no night time service (57 watts doesn't cut it) the music hours are somewhat limited. As for streaming there are plenty of places to hear standards streamed for free.
Let's look at what you get for your contribution: A jukebox with no live announcer playing standards for about 10 hours a day during the summer and 7 hours a day in the winter.
How much of a contribution are they looking for $50? $100? You could take $100 and spend it on 100 songs you could buy and play anytime, anywhere without commercials.
I think we all know that WAVO isn't going to be on an agency "buy" list. The only way to make it, is sell commercials directly to businesses that want to support the station and it's format as a public service for their customers. Work with the Mom and Pop business to record their own commercial. After all everyone still gets a kick out of hearing themselves on the radio.
Let's look at what you get for your contribution: A jukebox with no live announcer playing standards for about 10 hours a day during the summer and 7 hours a day in the winter.
How much of a contribution are they looking for $50? $100? You could take $100 and spend it on 100 songs you could buy and play anytime, anywhere without commercials.
I think we all know that WAVO isn't going to be on an agency "buy" list. The only way to make it, is sell commercials directly to businesses that want to support the station and it's format as a public service for their customers. Work with the Mom and Pop business to record their own commercial. After all everyone still gets a kick out of hearing themselves on the radio.
Sure they could. But they don't.
Do you think this guy hasn't already worked all the local businesses?
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b turner already mentioned how expensive it really is. But if you want more specifics, look at a an extract from a real station's chart of accounts:
Insurance
Liabiliy, defamation and slander, fire, casualty, tower, vehicles used for station business.
Taxes
Real Property, assets, business licence, other municipal, county and state licences, FICA
Music Licenses
ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. Usually around 3% of gross revenue. (The average station bills $600 thousand, so $18 k a year for that average station.)
Streaming Licenses
DCMA mandated fees plus the performance rights organizations. It's going to be about $300 a month minimum for the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC licenses.
Engineering
Engineer (contract or employee), parts, maintenance, supplies, reserve for catastrophic failures, reserve for tower painting and maintenance, computers, software (traffic, accounting, maybe music scheduling and sales tracking), maintenance of facilities (janitorial to keeping transmitter site clean and tower painted), phones, station cell phones, electricity, high speed Internet, water, trash disposal, etc.
Regulatory
Spectrum fee, FCC counsel (as needed, such as license renewal)
Legal
Review of contracts such as new leases, employee contracts, claims and lawsuits
Personnel
Accountant, if partnership an audit usually needed, traffic, airstaff and production (even if just one person), sales, management.
Sales expense
Sales promotion, sales salaries, commissions, memberships in community groups like BBB.
Programming
Music acquisition (unless in big market), production library, trade magazines. Program acquisition in the case of non-barter shows bought for sales potential.
Vehicles
Station van, perhaps manager car. Gas, maintenance, licences and fees.
And I probably missed a bunch of them... and others depend on station size, like outside advertising, attending conventions, acquisition of new equipment, and so on.
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Maybe, or maybe not effectively. You find out what the local businesses need to promote their business, offer packages, community tie ins, incentives, anything to get them on the air and get them results.
Good list David but this station is part of a small cluster and there are some shared expenses. Tower painting and lighting is not a factor if the tower is less than 200 feet and not near an airport. With today's overnight delivery many small stations carry few if any spare parts mostly relying on a backup transmitter. Contract engineers often take care of the transmitter janitorial services and an office person usually does it for the sales office and studio if there is one. There are other places where costs can be and have been cut.
There are lots of other radio stations in the same town that can do the job more efficiently. WAVO is the lowest rated station in town, delivering the smallest group of listeners, who statistically aren't interested in the products the advertisers want to promote.
Once again, what's wrong with users of a radio station paying for the service and format they enjoy? Less commercial clutter, less pressure on the owner to change the format or cut the playlist, more motivation in serving the audience rather than the advertisers. Why is that so wrong?
What's wrong with it is as a business model it won't work. If the expenses are as great as everyone says, the station will not get enough support to make budget.
How do we know WAVO is the lowest rated station in town? While it's probably close to the bottom I doubt they subscribe to the ratings in this PPM market. If they don't subscribe they don't get listed, right? Am I missing something here?
How do we know WAVO is the lowest rated station in town? While it's probably close to the bottom I doubt they subscribe to the ratings in this PPM market. If they don't subscribe they don't get listed, right? Am I missing something here?
You have all the answers. So when this station goes off the air, you can say it was the owner's fault.
He didn't work hard enough so you could listen for free.
I should leave this alone, I really don't want a difference of opinion to get ugly. I merely asked how we can tell that WAVO is, as you said the lowest rated station in town? It's an honest question because no, I don't have all the answers.
Looking at their website I see they are looking for 120 people to give $120. If 120 people give $150 they can also stream. Okay so now that we know how much they need what would you like to contribute?
As for me listening for free I thought that was the model commercial broadcasters have used for the past 90+ years.
You should know that this is one station in the GHB group which owns at least 15 other radio stations.
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