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A reason why advertisers don't target 55+ audiences
- Thread starter davideduardo
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Most of these companies are losing money. Hard to accuse a company of greed when they've been through bankruptcy. There are much better investments where one can satisfy their greed. That's why nobody wants to buy radio stations, and why the heritage companies like CBS have sold them.
Who are you talking about? Certainly not Audacy.
The vast majority of companies formed in the US are small businesses owned by "Ma and Pa" or a couple of partners. The main purpose in incorporating is to avoid personal legal responsibility for the acts of the business.
But all for-profit companies want to make money. If they did not, the jobs they provide would be gone.
When governments try to form companies "for the benefit of the people" we get Yugos and Ilyushins.
Or you might get Volkswagon, formed by the German government, pre WW2.
But totally reorganized after that when the company became private and for-profit.
Two questions there. The first---Gene Autry was a singing cowboy in movie westerns from 1934 to 1953. He'd made millions of dollars. Two years before his last movie, he and a guy named Bob Reynolds formed Golden West Broadcasters and they bought KMPC in 1952 for $800,000. It was 27 years to that record billing year.
Could he have the same success today? Well, in terms of money, WTOP in Washington, D.C. billed $70 million in 2022, which is four million more than the adjusted figure for KMPC in 1979. So, yeah---it's possible. And WTOP is owned by Hubbard, which started out as one guy---Stanley Hubbard. But the odds are very long.
Ultimately, the point wasn't about right place/right time or replicating the success. It was a direct response to a post that suggested a profitable radio station was the result of greed.
Guess what? In the cases of many large businesses, employees are also shareholders. The point doesn’t change. Jobs depend on the money.
And they PAY those people FAR LESS than their actual worth!
A solution since a group of older people tend to be very passionate about music from their youth is to just let wealthier older people directly fund the station....so basically have listeners donate to it, but be run by a major corporation, since there seems to be a demand (and I would think consensus on what they want played a lot of times.)
Prescott Joe stated "And they pay those people far less than they are worth". Sounds a bit bitter to me and that you may have been paid what you were worth. Just because you are rich (I'm not), I am not obligated to pay you more because I am. If you'll work for far less that you think you should get, you simply made a bad deal. The hard fact is nobody will work harder than the owner. And you never saw the struggles an owner survived to get to where they are. As for the super wealthy, why shouldn't they just live on the interest rather than invest it in a company where people complain about their pay and imply they're greedy. If I was super rich, I likely would shut down a company where folks thought that way.
I would say no business is going to start up to lose money to serve people who are not what the typical advertiser sees as their target consumer, at least on radio. Public radio where listeners donate is the way to go run by a board like any other non-profit.
I would say no business is going to start up to lose money to serve people who are not what the typical advertiser sees as their target consumer, at least on radio. Public radio where listeners donate is the way to go run by a board like any other non-profit.
And you can determine their worth? Good lord, this isn’t that hard. Companies are of course generally focused on shareholder value. That’s how business works. Owners, including shareholders, want value. And given the proliferation of 401Ks and similar programs, millions upon millions of us are stakeholders in all kinds of companies by way of the funds we invest in.
And people rely on the companies for jobs, insurance and all that good stuff. Whining about not being paid fair value is a timeless cliche.
Like nearly all non-spiritual things in life, "value" is dependent on supply and demand. Emeralds are worth more than diamonds.
People with the talent to sing, write, act, paint, code, run complex devices or manage businesses with success are in shorter supply than people who can place items in bags and boxes at a warehouse. So they make more.
The principle of communism is "from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs". There is a reason why that system never was put into practice anywhere because it is not viable. Instead, we compare our free enterprise system with socialism where essentially the most talented make the most income and enjoy the greatest privileges.
This is why radio people in small markets generally make less than those in larger ones. In your namesake town, several stations are unprofitable and the rest are minimally profitable. So their staff is paid much less than a person in an equivalent position in Phoenix or Tucson. And that is why we radio folks have been nomads in the past, moving to higher paying positions. It's the same in all free economy nations of the world... I'm an example in having worked in over a dozen countries, seven states and one territory!
This comment made me think of the years I spent as an owner of stations. That was when there were no pagers, no cellular phones, no Internet. So if I went to a movie or to a restaurant or social gathering or a sales call, I carried a little radio with an earphone. At one point, every half hour I would check all 4 AM frequencies and all 5 FM frequencies to make sure they were on the air. If one was not, I was out of there and on my way to one of 5 transmitter locations or the studios to fix the problem.
I was the owner. I had contract engineers, but I could not require them to check every station often if I went out of my office or my home. And, always, I'd be the first to the problem location even if the contract engineer was also on the way... often we were back on the air before they even arrived.
My point is to totally agree with your statement "nobody will work harder than the owner". And the stuff I went through other than technical problems... ranging from being beaten up by guys sent by a competitor to having STL antennas roped cowboy-style and pulled down to threats of murder... would only be endured by an owner.
This is all very idealistic, and maybe most of it was true in the days when you guys were starting your careers.
Ask anyone under 40 if it rings true today, though, and they'll laugh at you.
In the 70s or 80s, you could live the "town to town, up and down the dial" existence because even though radio salaries weren't all that high compared to other industries, the cost of living wasn't that bad.
Your owner was local or maybe a small regional operator, and if you made $250 or $300 a week, you'd spend half of it or less on rent and be able to live pretty decently on the rest. And the owner you worked for might make five or six times what you did.
That's not the case in the 21st century US economy, and you all know that, even if you don't want to admit it.
The "owner" is less likely to be a hard-working on site manager and more likely to be a faceless venture capital firm out to extract whatever it can, as fast as it can. There's no alignment of interest between workers and ownership in that situation.
Back in the era where some of you seem to be living, you'd want your owner to succeed because their success led to a better work environment for you. In 2024? You're still going to end up being laid off with no severance, and you'll be the first on the list if you've built up some seniority and benefits.
The best and clearest evidence of this is the spread that has grown between executive pay and average worker pay. It's not the 5 or 6 times it used to be. It's dozens or hundreds of times as much, and it doesn't create better management as a result. Ask Zaslav. Ask Mike Reed at Gannett. Ask David Field
That's not a healthy form of capitalism. It's a heavily distorted economy that isn't going to be sustainable for my kids or their generation.
We saw a lot of the cracks in the system during the first few years of the pandemic. There's more coming. Right now, my kids have little to no hope of being able to get jobs that would allow them to afford to live in the middle-class, medium-market suburb where we raised them. Go to a bigger city and it's entirely impossible.
No economic system can survive long when so much wealth gets so concentrated at the very top of the system. Only by acknowledging the reality of how bad it's getting do we have any chance of fixing it without a revolution or a total collapse. Ask your local gen-Zer how ready they already are for that revolution. You might be surprised.
Ask anyone under 40 if it rings true today, though, and they'll laugh at you.
In the 70s or 80s, you could live the "town to town, up and down the dial" existence because even though radio salaries weren't all that high compared to other industries, the cost of living wasn't that bad.
Your owner was local or maybe a small regional operator, and if you made $250 or $300 a week, you'd spend half of it or less on rent and be able to live pretty decently on the rest. And the owner you worked for might make five or six times what you did.
That's not the case in the 21st century US economy, and you all know that, even if you don't want to admit it.
The "owner" is less likely to be a hard-working on site manager and more likely to be a faceless venture capital firm out to extract whatever it can, as fast as it can. There's no alignment of interest between workers and ownership in that situation.
Back in the era where some of you seem to be living, you'd want your owner to succeed because their success led to a better work environment for you. In 2024? You're still going to end up being laid off with no severance, and you'll be the first on the list if you've built up some seniority and benefits.
The best and clearest evidence of this is the spread that has grown between executive pay and average worker pay. It's not the 5 or 6 times it used to be. It's dozens or hundreds of times as much, and it doesn't create better management as a result. Ask Zaslav. Ask Mike Reed at Gannett. Ask David Field
That's not a healthy form of capitalism. It's a heavily distorted economy that isn't going to be sustainable for my kids or their generation.
We saw a lot of the cracks in the system during the first few years of the pandemic. There's more coming. Right now, my kids have little to no hope of being able to get jobs that would allow them to afford to live in the middle-class, medium-market suburb where we raised them. Go to a bigger city and it's entirely impossible.
No economic system can survive long when so much wealth gets so concentrated at the very top of the system. Only by acknowledging the reality of how bad it's getting do we have any chance of fixing it without a revolution or a total collapse. Ask your local gen-Zer how ready they already are for that revolution. You might be surprised.
And to bring this back around to the original point of the thread - if you think seniors are too stretched economically to be good targets for advertising, wait till you meet Gen Z.
(And talk to them about their attitudes toward the advertising that completely permeates their lives.)
(And talk to them about their attitudes toward the advertising that completely permeates their lives.)
I have a different perspective. Although I did my college economics in the 70's, I've tried to keep up with my reading (at least when the content is not too theoretical).
The biggest change starting slowly even in the 60's with the first Japanese cars that offered higher quality at competitive prices. This move of heavy industry from the US to other nations advanced through the 70's and became a full-bore process by the mid to later 80's.
In our field, brands like RCA died. Appliances like washers and refrigerators and vacuums either came from American companies using "maquiladoras" in Mexico or Japanese... and a growing number of Taiwanese, Korean and Thai manufacturers and brands.
Environmental issues caused whole industries to move. A case in point is the aluminum industry, where last month one of the few remaining producers closed permanently. What has been done is to move potentially polluting industries from the U.S. where they can be properly regulated to places where there is no regulation at all. The effect is increased world-wide pollution and the loss of millions of American jobs.
I've been in nations where the lost American production now resides. Black rivers where plants will not grow for 5 or 6 meters on either side of the banks. Smoking refineries and plants with obviously no abatement of contamination.
And much lower labor costs. In neighboring Mexico, an industrial worker gets in a week less than a union worker in the US makes per day. So industries don't locate in the U.S. unless they can operate with near total automation. I saw an episode of one of those "how is it made?" shows last week and it featured the Tesla plant in Fremont, CA. Huge areas of the factory with no people and dozens of robots. Little labor.
While it was radically politically motivated, I liked the previous administration's placement of tariffs on foreign imports from nations where labor costs were kept low and stolen technology was being used to drive out American business.
I remember a QSL card from the early 60's from WTTM in Trenton, NJ. It had the call letters and then a slogan of "World Takes - Trenton Makes". Now it should be "World Makes, Trenton Takes".
I believe that job losses have come from excessive regulation and labor costs that do not allow the United States to compete in world markets.
One of my daughters was in Chile recently handling a legal case. She went to the largest shopping Center in Santiago (about the size of Mall of the Americas in Minnesota) and they were having one of those new car shows in the open spaces in the mall. Of something like 77 different cars, there were no American models, and only a couple of European and Korean cars. Over 70 models of Chinese brands were on display, and the newer cars on the streets were all Chinese.
And the Grim Reaper literally walks the hallways of these station cluster buildings every day.
Wait.....Hayley in HR just said don't worry about him, he's just doing evaluations......Well thank goodness! Whew!...You know, for a minute there, I thought I was.......(THUD!)
Look, apart from not giving a clear guide as to how one would assess every employee's "actual worth", Prescott Joe is right.
And wrong.
It depends entirely on the company.
Not all of them are owned by Ebeneezer Scrooge. There are some people who are paid very well for what they do, and without complaint, by enlightened owners who understand what value those people bring to the company.
But even those companies are not charitable organizations. Should there be a downturn, some might take a loss for a few quarters before looking for jobs to cut---but that can't go on forever.
Americans have been viewed as Consumers for a long time. Buy lots of cheap useless crap at Walmart. Now it's get Amazon deliveries every day. The American culture and economy is almost entirely based on Consumer Spending. That's unhealthy and unsustainable.
You are right about CEO pay. The gulf between the wealthiest 1 percent and the average worker is the widest ever. Keep the masses entertained with football games, political turmoil, Tik Tok, etc...
Let Them Eat Cake...
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I've read all your responses with breathless anticipation!
I've had the opportunity to see, first hand, how KAHM, Prescott, AZ
commenced operations and continues to this day, offering Easy Listening
music. The original owner, Lew Silverstein, worked tirelessly, made a modest
living for his family and treated employees fairly. Those former employees,
still insist to this day, they received proper compensation for their work.
It's not rocket science folks. The station, under new management and
ownership, continues to offer the Easy Listening genre. Some of the advertisers
have been with the station for well over 40 years. Now, let the silly responses
commence!
I've had the opportunity to see, first hand, how KAHM, Prescott, AZ
commenced operations and continues to this day, offering Easy Listening
music. The original owner, Lew Silverstein, worked tirelessly, made a modest
living for his family and treated employees fairly. Those former employees,
still insist to this day, they received proper compensation for their work.
It's not rocket science folks. The station, under new management and
ownership, continues to offer the Easy Listening genre. Some of the advertisers
have been with the station for well over 40 years. Now, let the silly responses
commence!
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