This is not true. Ad agencies and everyone else are buying audiences, not days. I am not sure where posters here think they understand media buying and strategies
Nearly every buy I see... and have seen for decades... is against a specific demo (age, gender, ethnicity, language preference, etc) and daypart or set of dayparts.
Most buys are within the 25-54 or 18-49 demos and M-F 6 AM to 7 PM. A few use M-Sat 6 AM to 7 PM. Few use nights and Sundays.
This is a generalization, but it covers the bulk of non-local agency buys. Local agencies are both closer to clients and to consumers, as you successfully know.
I own a very successful ad agency. Every client need is different. This idea of 25-54, or “drive time “ is totally outdated thinking.
Not for the vast majority of regional or national buys. Simply put, an agency buying 50 markets and 4 to 6 stations deep does not have time to look at special night or weekend shows individually; that would mean about 300 close inspections of stations and, then, close control of affidavits of performance.
Every one of Media One clients are crushing it. Every one. I do the media purchasing and marketing strategies for them for all medias, including digital and tv . In many cases I also do the creative
Nit picking time: singular is "medium" and plural is "media". There are no "medias".
You can do that in a single market or a couple of regional ones. No national shop does that... or can do it on the kinds of margins they have.
A few posters on here are simply bitter at the radio industry. I am here to tell you that a well run station will succeed big league. Everything in the world has a constantly changing dynamic, including radio. In the 80’s you could just let it run. People had far less choices with everything. Now, you must be proactive, as just about everything is your competition
I seriously thought of making a group purchase about a decade ago. I was looking at at least 3 markets to shield myself from economic turn-downs in one... and at least 3 FMs in each. I could pick a number of rated markets in a "drivable region" and buy them with cash or my line of credit.
I did not know that the pandemic was coming. But I saw that radio money was not growing and was, in fact, shrinking due to inflation. I realized that success would come from deep community involvement and from adding things like web presence for clients, promotions, and all the stuff you do.
I decided that it would no longer be fun to have to do that, every day, even with clients on weekends and evenings. So I decided to keep my money and live off the income. That is what most people in radio are thinking now.
Most I know are thinking "I wish I had gotten out earlier". (I'll bet I could safely say Jeff Smulyan said that, too!)
P.S. I gave a "like" to your post. What you do is amazing. But there are not many like you who can make local radio work.
radioink.com
