Lumber Liquidators automated response to complaint letter

[Varulven]

As I always have said - bring it to the advertisers!


Lumber Liquadators
3000 John Deere Road Toano, VA
23166
http://www.lumberliquidators.com/custserv/contactus.jsp
800 366 4204

Lumber Liquadators advertises on WRKO Boston. Yesterday an on-air personality was suspended for homophobic comments. We are boycotting all WRKO advertisers until John Depetro is fired. Please tell WRKO how disappointed you are in them.

Thank you.


Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:47:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email protected]
To: JoeViglione@
Subject: Re: Contact The President

Greetings Joe Viglione,

Thank You!

This is your acknowledgement that we received your email and we will reply to your message within 24 hours.

Office of the President
Lumber Liquidators
3000 John Deere Rd.
Toano, VA 23168
http://www.lumberliquidators.com


http://gerritystone.com/
225B Merrimac Street
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801
[email protected]
Phone: (781) 938-1820

Dear Gerrity Stone:

This morning at 11:03 AM there was a commercial for your company on WRKO.

Yesterday a WRKO on-air personality was suspended for homophobic comments. Please tell WRKO how disappointed you are in them. We are considering a boycott of stations advertising on WRKO if John Depetro isn't fired. As Mike Elder kept Michael Savage on the air after MSNBC fired Savage, and as Jason Wolfe allowed
Dennis & Callahan back on the air after they made
racially insensitive comments, we believe WRKO does this for two reasons:

a)To push their homophobic agenda

b)To try to get ratings for a show that is, according to the Boston Herald, tied for 18th in the Arbitrons.
And that's before you factor in the numbers for stations like WBUR, WERS and other non-commercial radio stations that get numbers that aren't displayed in the regular "book".

If you factor in college radio, John Depetro probably isn't in the Top 20. One can make a good argument that WMBR at MIT gets better ratings than John Depetro.

If WRKO wants to bash gays for their publicity stunts, then please put your money where it will do the most good. Sponsor a show on NPR.

Sincerely,

Joe Viglione
President,
Varulven Records
P.O. Box 2392
Woburn, MA 01888


cc: Boston Red Sox

They were on WRKO at 11:03 AM this morning...

 

[Eli Polonsky]

One can make a good argument that WMBR at MIT gets better ratings than John Depetro.

Actually, sad to say, that's not true. Having access to the Boston non-comm ratings, I can tell you that WMBR just barely blips in at the very bottom. Like many WMBR programs, their weekday morning alt-rock shows have a healthy local "cult following" which has supported the station well during their fundraisers for many years, but they just barely show up in the ratings among the greater Boston mainstream listening audience.

WMBR is not a ratings-driven station like the professional non-comms. Their program schedule is a smorgasbord of student and community volunteer specialty shows which completely changes format every two hours. Many of the shows have their "cult followings" who tune in specifically for them, but that kind of schedule can't result in a significant enough TSL (time spent listening) or cumulative listenership to get much for numbers.

WMBR's highest Arbitron rated shows currently are their Haitian shows on Sunday mornings, though the more well-heeled audience for their long-running weekday alt-rock shows gives them much more pledge support in their fundraisers.

One exception was my old show, which was often the top Arbitron rated show on WMBR and among one of their top three pledge-getters for many years, though that's still not much of a claim. The highest ratings WMBR ever gets would still not be high enough to show up in Radio And Records even if they showed the non-comm stations because they don't list below anything below a .4 share, and the highest rated shows on WMBR don't even get that high. A big fish in a tiny puddle isn't even a guppy in the real world.

 

[AKLes]

The bitter taste of reality.

As I always have said - bring it to the advertisers!


Lumber Liquadators
3000 John Deere Road Toano, VA
23166
http://www.lumberliquidators.com/custserv/contactus.jsp
800 366 4204

Lumber Liquadators advertises on WRKO Boston. Yesterday an on-air personality was suspended for homophobic comments. We are boycotting all WRKO advertisers until John Depetro is fired. Please tell WRKO how disappointed you are in them.

I believe it works this way:

Company that sells lumber products to the general public but heavily to the construction industry receives this boycott notice. They think about it. Consider how many "offended" people have ever bought anything from them. Then they consider how many of their regular customers are neutral on the subject or might regard the "offended" as a basket of _____________....and perhaps do a little more business to spite them.

Barnum had it right. Boycott = pubicity, of which none is bad.

But, just to be sure, they make sympathetic noises but not TOO sympathetic!

I wish you well......

 

[Infidel]

Nothing wrong with a boycott -- it's a free country. I already boycott several businesses that caved into the agenda of the purple mafia, as is my right as a consumer. Most radio advertisers have pushed me away from their products not by the hosts comments but by how much their commercials annoy the #@%$ out of me.