Well, now that I have some time on my hands and I joined the board last month, I'll throw up a post on this topic since; A) I was there, and B) I'm not hiding behind some screen name. Jeez, I wish you wanna bees and armchair PD's would stop hiding. Kudo's to Jeff L., Frank F., Randy K. and others who are being credible. That makes for a better board. Now then...
At the risk of pissing off Bruce, let's be logical. See Spot. See Spot run. The Gold Show is running in AM drive. The eye doctor is running in prime talk time. Hello? Do any of you folks understand cash flow? Have you ever had to do a budget? The station has a freaking .6 and is going to fall more and they know this. If you can get $500 to $600 and hour for someone to hawk their goods, what the hell. Your sales department would have to sell 10 sixty second spots per hour to match that. 820 hasn't had a solid sales force since early 2006 (don't blame DeFazio) and everyone in town knows this. I have been in talent, sales, management and on the agency side, so I hope you appreciate the perspective. As I said in my post last month: Over 300 radio stations went dark last year in this country. A private operator does what he needs to do to survive. And paying a local morning guy over 6 figures, whether it's me or Reeves, is not in the playbook anymore at 820.
The Mike Reeves gig is an experiment that was planned at Mike's request after I announced I was leaving. Mike has an idea for a non-political centric show that he thinks will fit somewhere on 820. Who knows... maybe on another station? Give Bruce some credit for letting them experiment! And give Mike and his crew some credit for doing it for next to nothing to see if it works. I'm not going to judge what they are doing, because that doesn't matter. What matters is, you have some of the best known names in the market trying something new. Again, it's not meant to be a morning show. That just happens to be the space that was available to play. But who knows? What if they get a ton of sponsors and it works? Then good for everyone involved!
Mike knows what I know -- and what most of you on the board don't know. Do any of you get up before 8AM? Like 1040, 1/2 of a 6-9AM morning show on 820 essentially doesn't reach 1/2 the market, 1/2 of the year. See Spot run! The numbers for my show were almost always a "stair step," with 8AM being the biggest hour. Go to radio-locator.com and look at the night patterns. Both stations miss half of their home counties during darkness hours.
And for the record, for those who didn't track the PPM for 8AM in November... (This is no secret, 970 and Salem picked up on it immediately) You can "game the system." I designed a clock for PPM that was basically my old 95YNF morning clock in the '80s. That's why you didn't hear any breaks at the top & bottom of the hour. I threw it on in October. The prime target 35-64 men went up 100%, 35+ men went up 55% and weekly cume went up 29%. But none of this matters when media buyers are only buying 1 station deep in a format right now.
Sorry if I sound condescending, but on the rare occasions I stop in here, I am troubled by so many who post bad information on that which they know nothing. It's OK to speculate and be critical. But if you don't know the facts, just read. I'd come here more often it was more productive.
Mark Larsen
At the risk of pissing off Bruce, let's be logical. See Spot. See Spot run. The Gold Show is running in AM drive. The eye doctor is running in prime talk time. Hello? Do any of you folks understand cash flow? Have you ever had to do a budget? The station has a freaking .6 and is going to fall more and they know this. If you can get $500 to $600 and hour for someone to hawk their goods, what the hell. Your sales department would have to sell 10 sixty second spots per hour to match that. 820 hasn't had a solid sales force since early 2006 (don't blame DeFazio) and everyone in town knows this. I have been in talent, sales, management and on the agency side, so I hope you appreciate the perspective. As I said in my post last month: Over 300 radio stations went dark last year in this country. A private operator does what he needs to do to survive. And paying a local morning guy over 6 figures, whether it's me or Reeves, is not in the playbook anymore at 820.
The Mike Reeves gig is an experiment that was planned at Mike's request after I announced I was leaving. Mike has an idea for a non-political centric show that he thinks will fit somewhere on 820. Who knows... maybe on another station? Give Bruce some credit for letting them experiment! And give Mike and his crew some credit for doing it for next to nothing to see if it works. I'm not going to judge what they are doing, because that doesn't matter. What matters is, you have some of the best known names in the market trying something new. Again, it's not meant to be a morning show. That just happens to be the space that was available to play. But who knows? What if they get a ton of sponsors and it works? Then good for everyone involved!
Mike knows what I know -- and what most of you on the board don't know. Do any of you get up before 8AM? Like 1040, 1/2 of a 6-9AM morning show on 820 essentially doesn't reach 1/2 the market, 1/2 of the year. See Spot run! The numbers for my show were almost always a "stair step," with 8AM being the biggest hour. Go to radio-locator.com and look at the night patterns. Both stations miss half of their home counties during darkness hours.
And for the record, for those who didn't track the PPM for 8AM in November... (This is no secret, 970 and Salem picked up on it immediately) You can "game the system." I designed a clock for PPM that was basically my old 95YNF morning clock in the '80s. That's why you didn't hear any breaks at the top & bottom of the hour. I threw it on in October. The prime target 35-64 men went up 100%, 35+ men went up 55% and weekly cume went up 29%. But none of this matters when media buyers are only buying 1 station deep in a format right now.
Sorry if I sound condescending, but on the rare occasions I stop in here, I am troubled by so many who post bad information on that which they know nothing. It's OK to speculate and be critical. But if you don't know the facts, just read. I'd come here more often it was more productive.
Mark Larsen
