High School Sports & More

[butlerguy03]

We are a high school owned non-comm trying to compete against the athletic department for community funding. We are up for selling underwriting like ads 30 spot packages) if it means more income.

Our station is a pop-oriented CHR that has a lot of listeners outside the primary school district, with a city of 50k in the listening area, and covering approx 250k. We, however, have a lot of competition for the radio dollar near Indianapolis and Muncie.

What should our rate card look like to attract these "community supporter" businesses for sports? What should it look like for regular programming?

I have never worked in sales and just need to know where to start to get some extra money coming in and believe we have an advantage being connected with the school for the community supporter budgets.

 

[bturner]

Hi Butlerguy03,

I wish I could give you an easier answer, but let me offer you some ideas:

As a non-commercial stations, a 15 second spot is easier to write and less likely to violate FCC Rules since you pretty much stick to the basics.

My first question is what might the average business spend with any other school related media (school paper, annual, programs, etc.)?
Once you see what is being spent already, your goal is to find the right number of spots needed to drag a few customers to their door. Don't go overboard on the number.

I would wonder how long a listener is tuned to your station at one 'listen'. For example, a station that is 'right' for the office might play all day while a news station might get the same listener 4 or 5 times a day for 10 or 15 minutes. Now, how many commercials does it take for the 'office' station listener to hear the spot a couple of times a week? How about the news station (certainly many, many spots).

At one station I worked (a commercial station), we sold youth supporter sponsorships. They bought for the whole year, got a spot a day in regular programming and one or two spots during every school event we aired. In the long run, we got much more money. I think we ended up with about 30-35 sponsors. The package was $30 in 1978, which was the typical amount a mom and pop business spent in the newspaper and other spots on our station.

I would place less emphasis on size of the audience or potential but more emphasis on a dollar amount most businesses in the area can afford. I'd even encourage trying to get clients to voice their spots. Clients hate to cancel themselves.

Get in touch if I can help or share any ideas.

Bill

 

[Prais]

Bill said; youth supporter sponsorships. They bought for the whole year, got a spot a day in regular programming and one or two spots during every school event we aired. In the long run, we got much more money. I think we ended up with about 30-35 sponsors.

We did the same w/our whols sports schedule 4 high schools football (2 on Fri 2 on Sat)/college football Sat aft/high school basketball and football/Chicago Cubs and Sox, Bears and Bulls.

We had 60 ANNUAL sponsors and sold about half on the phone.

Great!

 

[Groove1670]

At one station I worked (a commercial station), we sold youth supporter sponsorships.

What did the spot (script) say to tie in with the school sponsorship.?

 

[bturner]

All of the scripts we wrote for school sports annual sponsorships contained a variation of "supporting our youth" or something along those lines. As a commercial station, the spots were pretty much like underwriter acknoweldgements, just what the business does and the fact they support high school spots. There was never price and item...generally evergreens with a rare copy change. Sponsors got a spot a day and two spots in every high school sports broadcast we carried, all for a monthly fee on an annual contract. Many of the spots aired during the evening, especially if they were frequented by youth (ie: Sonic, Pizza Hut, the flower shop everybody bought mums from, etc.). They were all 30 second units back then.

When I was at another station, we offered 10 second spots, bunch 5 into a sixty to make up a commercial unit. We found it easier to squeeze in a 10 between plays or pitches that taking 60 second breaks. In games, these were live reads, each spot on a 3 by 5 notecard on a notebook ring...read and flip, basically.