KLUV

[RADIO TRUTH]

You are correct. The problem is advertisers do not buy 55-plus. End of story.

If radio people are so creative (and I say that tongue in cheek), find a way to sell advertisers on a 55+ audience and tap into
78,000,000 baby boomers with more dispensable income than any other demographic group. It is more about the lack of competence in radio management, sales and programming. The innovation is sadly lacking. Sell to baby boomers who have far more money to spend than anyone 18-34.

 

[317C50KW]

"If radio people are so creative (and I say that tongue in cheek), find a way to sell advertisers on a 55+ audience and tap into
78,000,000 baby boomers with more dispensable income than any other demographic group. It is more about the lack of competence in radio management, sales and programming. The innovation is sadly lacking. Sell to baby boomers who have far more money to spend than anyone 18-34."

OK, try explaining that to a 27 year old media buyer and her 32 year old supervisor!

 

[salemjedi54]

You are correct. The problem is advertisers do not buy 55-plus. End of story.

If radio people are so creative (and I say that tongue in cheek), find a way to sell advertisers on a 55+ audience and tap into
78,000,000 baby boomers with more dispensable income than any other demographic group. It is more about the lack of competence in radio management, sales and programming. The innovation is sadly lacking. Sell to baby boomers who have far more money to spend than anyone 18-34.

[size=10pt]RT This is the only positive thing you have ever posted.[/size]

 

[little1]

OK, try explaining that to a 27 year old media buyer and her 32 year old supervisor!

But who does the 27 year old media buyer and 32 year old supervisor ultimately answer to? Yep, the 60 year old CEO of the company that they're doing the buying for.

That's what some of you people don't get. It's not like the ad agency is deciding on their own who to market to. They're following the directions of the clients that pay their bills. My wife works for one of those agencies, trust me, it's true.

It's not the job of radio to go assemble an audience of 55+, then go out there and sell advertisers on the idea of advertising to that group. And besides, as David Eduardo mentioned last week, there are often much more cost-effective ways of advertising to the boomers. TV (like any cable news show) Magazines, (like Forbes, Money, and Arthritis Today ) and direct mail all may be more cost effective than radio. Add in other marketing venues like lifestyle shows (i.e. Ski shows, golf expos, etc) direct/at an event marketing (at the Byron nelson for example) and it's just more cost effective other places.

If you don't believe me, look at WBAP. Their 25-54 yr old ratings aren't great. But they are still one of the highest billers in the market. because a vast majority of their audience is 45+, and it's effective for advertisers to use them.

Now let's say ESPN has a lot of older listeners who LOVE Randy Galloway. Advertise there, and you're wasting a large portion of your budget hitting all those under 45 (or under 55) listeners. It's not that advertisers hate old people, it's that they hate wasting their money...

 

[jeffdfw]

Hey Peter Z... Since we had Super 70's Weekend how about an I Love the 80's Weekend next weekend???

 

[davideduardo]

If radio people are so creative (and I say that tongue in cheek), find a way to sell advertisers on a 55+ audience and tap into
78,000,000 baby boomers with more dispensable income than any other demographic group. It is more about the lack of competence in radio management, sales and programming. The innovation is sadly lacking. Sell to baby boomers who have far more money to spend than anyone 18-34.

Little1 already gave some detail on why there is essentially no agency business placed on radio.

The main reason agency clients tell their agency what demographics to buy is that the client knows who is the consumer, and who buys the most. Beers seldom advertise to women, even if women do drink beer. They drink, generally, less and are not commonly the decision maker in the category. If a beer advertises to women, the return on investment will be low, compared to targeting men, because fewer women make buying decisions and few buy for personal taste. In other words, it's not worth the effort.

Same goes for seniors. Even Boomers have buying patterns formed over many decades, so advertising must first overcome preferences, perceptions, stereotypes, etc. Then the ads must sell product. In most cases, the added amount of advertising needed to sell 55+ makes the profit per sale minimal or worse. There is no return on the investment, and it may also be that the campaign would have to be changed to resonate with older consumers... creating confusion in the marketplace.

Ad agency clients from P&G to Budweiser spend tens of millions a year to research their consumers... proprietary research only seen by brand managers and such... and if any marketer were to discover an opportunity in 55+, they would jump at it. For the moment, it's just not profitable.

 

[davideduardo]

There are 78,000,000 baby boomers who want to hear 50s and 60s music that are not being served by so called classic hits stations.

The majority of boomers do not want to hear 50's and 60's oldies.

First, many were never Top 40 fans. They may like country, urban, Latin music, classic rock, classical, talk, news and other things more.

Second, not everyone wants to hear the songs they grew up on. Some have "outgrown" those songs and have more contemporary tastes in popular music.

Third, a huge percentage of Americans are still immigrants who came here from another country where US Top 40 songs were not popular, or enjoyed only by a few.

So you have music that not everyone like to begin with, tempered by time and changes in the country. Few people want to hear that now.

 

[LibertyNT]

Hey Peter Z... Since we had Super 70's Weekend how about an I Love the 80's Weekend next weekend???

Isn't That Jack-FM all the time?

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

Little1 already gave some detail on why there is essentially no agency business placed on radio.

The main reason agency clients tell their agency what demographics to buy is that the client knows who is the consumer, and who buys the most. Beers seldom advertise to women, even if women do drink beer. They drink, generally, less and are not commonly the decision maker in the category. If a beer advertises to women, the return on investment will be low, compared to targeting men, because fewer women make buying decisions and few buy for personal taste. In other words, it's not worth the effort.

Same goes for seniors. Even Boomers have buying patterns formed over many decades, so advertising must first overcome preferences, perceptions, stereotypes, etc. Then the ads must sell product. In most cases, the added amount of advertising needed to sell 55+ makes the profit per sale minimal or worse. There is no return on the investment, and it may also be that the campaign would have to be changed to resonate with older consumers... creating confusion in the marketplace.

Ad agency clients from P&G to Budweiser spend tens of millions a year to research their consumers... proprietary research only seen by brand managers and such... and if any marketer were to discover an opportunity in 55+, they would jump at it. For the moment, it's just not profitable.

The above is a load of crap and here's why. The average age of a network tv news viewer is 57 and the three network newscasts have over 20,000,000 viewers combined. The average age of all of those idiotic conservative radio talk shows is about 57 and yet the Rush Limbaughs of the world are making plenty of money which indicates that his show and others like it make plenty of money. The average age of a Fox News Channel viewer is also up there as well as the average age of a CNBC
viewer and they all make money and get numbers. If they all have found a way to make money with a baby boomer audience then radio can. Avoiding playing 50s and 60s music and finding a way to effectively sell it is just a cop out from a bunch of incompetent boobs who run and manage most of these stations. Out of 78,000,000 baby boomers there is plenty of money to be made and ratings to be gotten playing 50s and 60s music.

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

The majority of boomers do not want to hear 50's and 60's oldies.

First, many were never Top 40 fans. They may like country, urban, Latin music, classic rock, classical, talk, news and other things more.

Second, not everyone wants to hear the songs they grew up on. Some have "outgrown" those songs and have more contemporary tastes in popular music.

Third, a huge percentage of Americans are still immigrants who came here from another country where US Top 40 songs were not popular, or enjoyed only by a few.

So you have music that not everyone like to begin with, tempered by time and changes in the country. Few people want to hear that now.

This is yet another load of crap. If this had even a kernel of truth in it, then why did stations like WCBS-FM come in number one in various rating books in the 1990s in a diary system that was slanted against them.

 

[davideduardo]

The average age of all of those idiotic conservative radio talk shows is about 57 and yet the Rush Limbaughs of the world are making plenty of money which indicates that his show and others like it make plenty of money.

I see. You have access to the time-specific ratings for Rush in every market?

In any case, generally half of the audience of conservative talkers is under 55.

When an agency puts out a call for rates against 25-54 (or some subset), they specify the cost per point goal for the market. The talk station submits rates based on delivery in the specified demo. While the under-55 may only be part of the total audience, the advertiser is not going to pay for the unwanted delivery. Since talkers have lots more inventory than music stations, they can price in proportion to the under-55 delivery and still bill very well.

Most of your examples are for national TV networks, and those accounts that do look for 55+ tend to buy there, not on local spot. Similarly, there are some 55+ accounts buying network radio (Rush, Hannity, et. al.) because it is cheap and a good supplement to TV and print. They don't buy local radio.

In any case, stations don't as a rule call on agency accounts... they call on the agency. While a few accounts do see the media, most will refer one right back to the agency, where the very pissed agency people have a fondness for blacklisting anyone who jumps the agency-client relationship.

Avoiding playing 50s and 60s music and finding a way to effectively sell it is just a cop out from a bunch of incompetent boobs who run and manage most of these stations. Out of 78,000,000 baby boomers there is plenty of money to be made and ratings to be gotten playing 50s and 60s music.

Most Boomers don't even like that music, or ceased to like it decades ago.

And that is ignoring the fact that most advertisers don't focus on 55+ because there is no return on investment. The smaller number of senior specific accounts would never be enough to sustain a station focused only on senior listeners.

 

[davideduardo]

This is yet another load of crap. If this had even a kernel of truth in it, then why did stations like WCBS-FM come in number one in various rating books in the 1990s in a diary system that was slanted against them.

The diary system was not "slanted against" anyone. It was just limited due to the methodology.

Let's say that WCBS-FM was #1 in 1990. That would mean it had about a 4.5 to 5 share of listening... or, at any given time, 19 out of every 20 listeners was not listening to them. And, more important, a person who was 50 in 1990 is 70 now. Even a person who was 35 is now 55... so the listeners they had then are all out of the demos that advertisers seek.

So I fail to see your point. The listeners back then did not overwhelmingly like the 50's and 60's Top 40 music of WCBS-FM, and the ones that did are now out of the sale demos.

In the larger rated markets, few stations get over a 6 or 7 share... and few if any have two classic hits (70's pop gold) stations, so even if one is at the top, it really reaches only a percentage of listeners, even in the 55+ demographics. Today, a station like CBS FM with a 70's core at any given moment might have around a 6% or 7% share of 35-54 or 55+ listening... stations like Lite FM in NY beat it with contemporary AC... most people have moved on.

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

All I know is that if I was running or owning a radio station and I knew that 25% of the population, 78,000,000 people who have more disposable income than any other demographic, I would be finding a way to get their audience and money. I think the radio stations are stupid to be the 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th station in a market going after the same 18-34, 25-34 demographic. It is
the lazy, uncreative way out for the boobs in radio management and programming. The advertising pie gets sliced very thinly. I would rather go after a demographic that nobody else is going after who have lots of disposable cash and that is baby boomers. All it takes is creativity in sales, marketing and programming.....creativity that is sadly lacking in what's left of the radio industry. Don't tell me why it won't work. Make it work. If Steve Jobs had the same attitude as the idiots who run radio, there would be
no IPODS, IPADS and various other technical advances. Sometimes you have to go against conventional thinking and have some
balls to innovate.

 

[davideduardo]

All I know is that if I was running or owning a radio station and I knew that 25% of the population, 78,000,000 people who have more disposable income than any other demographic, I would be finding a way to get their audience and money.

There is a station in the Tampa market that is #1 12+, but which pretty much has no audience under 50.

It's first in ratings, but around 15th or 16th in billings... and it's been that way for a decade or more.

Again, the reason is that they can pick up some lower rate direct accounts (with the collection issues and other problems related to large market direct accounts) but they are just not going to get more than a smattering of agency buys because the agencies have specific orders on what ages to buy.

You can whine and moan all day at an agency... but you can't get them to disobey the orders of the client, the one who hired them.

The Tampa station gets buy as it is a secondary signal but in a market with a huge retirement population... so there is a bit of direct business to pick up. Most places don't even have that.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Most Boomers don't even like that music, or ceased to like it decades ago.

Thank you. I was born smack in the middle of the baby boom, but I quit listening to Oldies and Classic Rock long ago. Burned out on it, outgrew it, and some of it is just plain embarrassing to listen to.

David, you are correct in pointing out that the audience has moved on. The 60's was half a century ago.

 

[grantchester]

If you want to effectively advertise to the over 54 crowd, the current model won't work. Passive impressions aren't going to overcome decades of past preference decision-making. The only way to make a success of an older audience is to inspire some kind of loyalty; Make them part of your community, and make that community something worth belonging to. They have to be inspired to be active listeners... and by extension, you have to cultivate active sponsors who are also aspiring to be part of that community...
But community sounds too much like communism, so nevermind. We're all Republicans now, right?

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

If you want to effectively advertise to the over 54 crowd, the current model won't work. Passive impressions aren't going to overcome decades of past preference decision-making. The only way to make a success of an older audience is to inspire some kind of loyalty; Make them part of your community, and make that community something worth belonging to. They have to be inspired to be active listeners... and by extension, you have to cultivate active sponsors who are also aspiring to be part of that community...
But community sounds too much like communism, so nevermind. We're all Republicans now, right?

I agree with this other than the Republican part. Attracting baby boomers and making money serving them can be done with
aggressive programming and promotion.

 

[davideduardo]

If you want to effectively advertise to the over 54 crowd, the current model won't work. Passive impressions aren't going to overcome decades of past preference decision-making. The only way to make a success of an older audience is to inspire some kind of loyalty; Make them part of your community, and make that community something worth belonging to. They have to be inspired to be active listeners... and by extension, you have to cultivate active sponsors who are also aspiring to be part of that community...
But community sounds too much like communism, so nevermind. We're all Republicans now, right?

/Toungincheek mode on

Why don't you call the executives of P&G, who spend a few hundred million a year on research and quite a bit more on product development based on the research, and tell them your theory and how they are wrong.

/Tongueincheek mode off

;D

Of course, they will want to know your success stories in successful brand introductions, brand maintenance and brand extensions. Maybe a little about how you improved the ROI on marketing dollars at a few package goods companies, and they will want to know where you got your MBA and what you wrote your thesis on...

The rest of us in radio understand that we are a service industry, and we prosper by providing sets of ears to marketers within the specifications that they set. When we do that, and when the economy is doing well, we can also provide our listeners with good entertainment and services at no cost.

Salmon swim against the current. Radio broadcasters don't.

 

[davideduardo]

I agree with this other than the Republican part. Attracting baby boomers and making money serving them can be done with
aggressive programming and promotion.

It's very easy to attract boomers... there area half dozen formats that can be adapted to please them even more (although all the older leaning formats have lots and lots of boomers).

The problem is that we would go broke doing it. There is not enough ad money out there against 55+ to make it worthwhile.

 

[grantchester]

David...
Put your chin in my hands and follow along...
Remember when the fairness doctrine went away, and Rush Limbaugh arrived? At first, there weren't many listeners, but businesses THREW money at stations to get on board. It was a show, and a community, they wanted to be part of.
Now with all due respect for the man with the masters feces and the market research, I'm not talking about getting P&G, GM, or Consolidated Widgets to tell their agencies to buy some cockamamie local radio show. I'm not talking about passive impressions, brand awareness or the other metrics the big agencies subscribe to. I'm talking about bringing people together as a common market, a community, a body of interest. It's not as big as Madison Avenue, or even as big as GSD&M. It's a group effort, built around a common desire. Maybe it's a fishing show. Maybe it's a natural gardening expert. Maybe it's someone who knows all the car dealers in town. Maybe it's a blues show, or a Cajun show, or even something like National Public Radio. It's an active group who bring dollars with their loyalty. Maybe it's not enough $$ to service Lowry Mays legacy debt, but if and when radio station values come back down to earth, there will be effective and entertaining communication based on COMMUNITY OF INTEREST.
Or, we can keep on doing the things that have put our industry into a death spiral.
Now pardon me as I cue up the 8 commercials in a row so we can get back to the same 400 songs our research shows people are familiar with.