OldGringo said:
When Jacor began building its empire on this "hub and spoke" strategy, I seem to remember several people questioning the wisdom of that idea since, like you said, spot radio is generally not bought regionally. I also seem to recall that Randy's response was something to the effect of no one had the opportunity to string together these regional clusters, and that was why spots were never bought regionally.
In the end, it wasn't that good of an idea from the getgo. A classic example of this would be Little Rock and Memphis. Although the two cities are not even 2 hours apart when driving, they are worlds apart when it comes to what they have to offer. Krystal advertises all over the TV and radio in Memphis, but there are no Krystal franchises west of Forrest City, AR. So, Little Rock is not a realistic option at any price. A more DFW-centric example is Taco Cabana. While Taco Cabana is up and down the I-35 corridor, they're nowhere near Shreveport. So, there would be no reason for them to buy Shreveport. For that matter, there would also be no reason for them to buy Tyler, Abilene or Wichita Falls. Yes, Shreveport offerred casinos and got lots of customers from the DFW area, but regional buys didn't even make much sense at their level as there weren't enough regional clusters nearby to make the option worth their while. The examples as to why it was a bad idea are endless. Bigg's being all over Cincinnati but stopping at the Indiana state line is yet another...