• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

KSFO To 810

lanceventa said:
It's to prevent a competitor from resurrecting a dead brand and getting the IP for nothing. That's less of a concern now as companies can keep a brand alive as a webcaster and/or HD subchannel.
Click to expand...
That is just part of it. Most of the preserved calls that have been moved to other stations and markets are kept in order to prevent confusion by agency buyers who identify the calls with the former station that held them. Agency buyers are mostly out of market, and even if "in market" are not generally going to be familiar with every station and its format.

So, if a buyer traditionally bought a station with those calls and the rest of the criteria are met (CPP, etc.), they buy the station they are familiar with based on the calls.
 
lanceventa said:
Unless contractually negotiated as was the case when ABC and CBS sold their radio groups, the station with the base call letters with no suffix owns the rights to the calls, which (outside of the two big exceptions noted) means that an AM will always be the primary owner.
Click to expand...
This isn't quite right. It's actually the owner who has controlled the base calls the longest, again, absent any other contractual arrangement.

Consider also that the base calls with no suffix aren't automatically on an AM. They can be on a TV or an FM if there's not an AM also using the base call, and it's entirely possible that WXXX-TV might have controlled the calls longer than WXXX(FM) and would have the right to decide if anyone else can use them on another service.

This also covers cases where there's nobody without a suffix. If you have KXXX-FM and KXXX-TV and someone wants to be KXXX-LP, who gets to grant permission? (It's whichever among the FM and TV has had the base call the longest.)

Having said all that, the callsign desk at the FCC is a mess, and if you come to them with a permission letter from anyone who holds the calls, they'll probably grant the request and then pull back the grant if someone bothers to object.
 
DavidEduardo said:
So, if a buyer traditionally bought a station with those calls and the rest of the criteria are met (CPP, etc.), they buy the station they are familiar with based on the calls.
Click to expand...
That doesn't say much about the ad buyers, does it? They really know that little about what they're spending clients' money on?
 
fybush said:
That doesn't say much about the ad buyers, does it? They really know that little about what they're spending clients' money on?
Click to expand...
If you are the buyer for a campaign hitting the "Top 100" markets, you likely will buy 3 to 5 deep in each (sometimes more, sometimes less). That is around 300 to 500 stations.

A buyer will first look at the stations that submitted rates that meet the CPP (Cost Per Point) goal for the buy. They will also look at clusters that have submitted several... or more... stations at a single spot rate. And if any station or market cluster has offered any "value added" such as bonus spots at night or on weekends, that "plus" will be considered.

Formats are looked at in two cases: First, if the product is not used by a particular ethnic group, then stations with a high percentage of Hispanics or Blacks may be eliminated. Or, if the product gets stronger sales among one or both of those groups, the stations with high percentages of them will be favored. Second, if the format of a station does not match the lifestyle associated with the product's marketing,

Some buys will try not to duplicate the same format on the buy; two AC's when they should really add the country station to get better reach. But in lots of cases, the format of each station is not closely looked at.

And even if a station is #1 in the agency client's target age (or gender or ethnicity) group, if it does not meet the CPP goals there is no buy. Of course, if that #1 station is part of a cluster in the same market, the station's rep may offer spots on one or more other stations to bring the CPP inline with the goal.

And the agency generally does not speak with the station at all. They buyer will reach out to the rep firm for each station or cluster and get rates and then negotiate if the rates don't meet the CPP the buy has specified.

If there is any discussion of formats and the like, it more likely is done at the media planner level. That is where the market by market buy specs are put together.

With automated buying increasing in usage, this whole process is done by computers talking to computers. The media department inputs the reach and frequency goal of the buy and the computer selects the stations to buy in each market. (Reach: total unduplicated cume that will hear the spot each week or during a flight. Frequency: the desired average number of times the average listener will hear the spot. Example: A buy wants a frequency of 10 and a reach of 60. That means they want 60% of the people in the market to hear the spot an average of 10 times,)
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom