"Would you be willing to stand in front of a client and say "this is why you should buy my station" and be prepared to back up any questions they'd have?"
Only if I didn't have to take a pay cut to do it.
This is exactly what I'm talking about...there is risk on the part of the station operator. Is talent willing to do this? I don't think so.[/i]
"When I asked them to buy the time from me and then turn around and resell the airtime to recoupe their costs, they balked. If they're not willing to take the risk, why should I?"
That reminds me of the time I was acting in a play. Several of us thought that we should have a certain type of costume. The costume lady said if we wanted those costumes, we could make it ourselves. She couldn't understand that being able to deliver lines convincingly in front of an audience is one skill, and making costumes is a totally different skill. Even though the theatre requires both actors and costume makers, it's very, very rare to find someone who is skilled at both totally separate tasks.
Broadcasting is no different. Some of the best broadcasters I know are extremely eloquent when locked away in a little room with just a microphone, but who can't put two words together when they're meeting someone face-to-face. The abilities to do what an on-air broadcaster needs to do in order to be a good on-air broadcaster aren't exactly the same things a good salesman needs to be able to do to be a good face-to-face salesman.
It's real easy for a station manager to dismiss someone who has the skill set to be an excellent broadcaster by forcing him to also be a great salesman. And, it makes for a great anecdote to tell the other station managers. "Yeah, some kid came in with what he thought was a great idea for a program, so I said 'Well then, sell enough spots to buy your own airtime' and the kid wouldn't do it."
Tell me, if someone approached you with a great idea for a radio program, would you expect him to be able to build his own studio from scratch? If you owned a restaurant and someone approached you with a recipe for an entree to put on your menu, would you expect him to be able to plow fields, plant seeds, and grow all of the ingredients?
You miss the point, which Clarke pointed out beautifully in his own thread. There are too many jocks out there who believe that what they have to say/play is what the listener wants. These guys are from a time when just about every radio station on the dial was a diverse, program-oriented middle-of-the-road format. Today, formats and audiences are fragmented, and in small market radio, your advertisers are primarily what drives your success. It's often hard to understand, and nobody wants to admit it, but the listeners are second. A station that depends on local revenue for 90 percent of its billing is going to cater to the needs of its advertisers. You could get a #1 Arbitron market rating, which would look attractive to an agency, but if the guy who owns the local hardware store is pitched a station he doesn't like, he's not going to care one way or another what that book says. Period. There is no way on God's Green Earth that you're going to get enough agency billing to sustain your station. Local billing doesn't just contribute to your bottom line, it also enhances your local image by lending credibility from a reputable business. Like "If Johnson's Hardware is advertising on WXXX, then they must be OK".
Speaking only for myself, I'm quite willing to take calculated risks about doing things that I know I have the skill set to handle. But that's far different from taking risks doing things I know I don't have the skill set to handle. The fact is, I discovered early in my career that I wasn't all that good at speaking in a little room with a microphone, but I was very at good speaking into a microphone on a podium in front of hundreds of people. I don't put down those who have the skills I don't have, but it really makes me angry to have those people put down the different skill set that I have.
Now that is my point. A jock who pitches for example, some R&B show with questionable lyrics that some listeners would find offensive and have the potential to put the overall revenue of the station at risk, but the jock in question doesn't see it that way. He believes the ego-feeding that the cult that likes his stuff gives him. This realm of music would be as you say is a different skill set that your typical manager would have inasmuch as selling it. This is why I say, again, "how would you sell it"? That's not intended to offend anyone or put down one's talents, but this business is far different than what it used to be. If you're so convinced it would sell, then show us how to do it. These are answers that need to be given when a sales rep is out selling your product. The guys from 'the good old days' are hanging on to those times waiting for it to revert, and sadly, it never will. It's getting tougher for the mom-and-pop operations to survive these days, and if guys like John James, Bob Stevens, and others like them to broker out their time, then more power to them. Their stations are different, and they're successful, but they don't have the risk factor they would if they tried such a venture with everyone being paid. When a program host makes a vested interest in airtime, they care a great deal more about their product.
To put it another way, if you were attempting to sell airtime spots to someone who owned a restaurant, would you accept a challenge from the client to personally cook in his kitchen to handle the increased business that he'd get from running an ad on your station? Or is that a risk you wouldn't want to take?
Amusing, but again you miss the point.
We all do what we do. Anyone who isn't willing to do something that is outside of their own personal talent and skill set shouldn't expect others to be different.
