November 2024 Bay Area Radio PPM Ratings

[radiofan2023]

Yeah. Because of the Muzak lawyers. And BMI and ASCAP and SESAC. I've met a couple of small business owners who went through hell over having a radio playing where customers could hear it.

Did BMI, etc. ever do stings or did they just work off of reports from people?

 

[michael hagerty]

Did BMI, etc. ever do stings or did they just work off of reports from people?

I don't know. I sort of pictured one complaint bringing the investigator to town, who then would walk in and out of stores, restaurants, etc. just to see what he or she could hear in the other establishments. I'm also assuming that in major cities (NY, LA, Chicago), there was probably someone there year-round just making visits.

The people I talked to said that one day a guy just showed up, asked them what radio station that was, then asked "do you always play it in the store, or do you listen to other stations or play recorded music, too?" Next question would be "how long you been doing that?" and then out would come the business card, and a brief conversation about becoming a licensed establishment.

If there wasn't an immediate agreement to become licensed, that's when the strongly worded letters would show up.

 

[radiofan2023]

I don't know. I sort of pictured one complaint bringing the investigator to town, who then would walk in and out of stores, restaurants, etc. just to see what he or she could hear in the other establishments. I'm also assuming that in major cities (NY, LA, Chicago), there was probably someone there year-round just making visits.

The people I talked to said that one day a guy just showed up, asked them what radio station that was, then asked "do you always play it in the store, or do you listen to other stations or play recorded music, too?" Next question would be "how long you been doing that?" and then out would come the business card, and a brief conversation about becoming a licensed establishment.

If there wasn't an immediate agreement to become licensed, that's when the strongly worded letters would show up.

I know there were some bars in Iowa City that got sued for playing music without a license a few years ago, after ASCAP tried to contact them several times, but I don’t know what they ended up having to pay:

National music organization sues Union Bar

ASCAP cites six instances of copyright infringement in 2013-14 by the Iowa City bar.

www.press-citizen.com

Popular downtown Iowa City music venue Gabe's sued for copyright infringement

ASCAP is seeking legal action against Gabe's for playing and performing copyrighted music without proper licensing.

www.press-citizen.com

 

[KilowattKat]

I know there were some bars in Iowa City that got sued for playing music without a license a few years ago, after ASCAP tried to contact them several times, but I don’t know what they ended up having to pay:

National music organization sues Union Bar

ASCAP cites six instances of copyright infringement in 2013-14 by the Iowa City bar.

www.press-citizen.com

Popular downtown Iowa City music venue Gabe's sued for copyright infringement

ASCAP is seeking legal action against Gabe's for playing and performing copyrighted music without proper licensing.

www.press-citizen.com

I've been hearing about more of this happening. It's desperation in trying to collect more royalties for the artist, as the number of people streaming free music and not paying for it, continues to increase.

 

[radiofan2023]

I've been hearing about more of this happening. It's desperation in trying to collect more royalties for the artist, as the number of people streaming free music and not paying for it, continues to increase.

One of the articles talked about the alleged copyright infringement being for the songwriters of a song that was performed at a karaoke night.

 

[davideduardo]

Yeah. Because of the Muzak lawyers. And BMI and ASCAP and SESAC. I've met a couple of small business owners who went through hell over having a radio playing where customers could hear it.



You clearly didn't brave Black Friday.

As a marketing major from college, I always have curiosity about consumer patterns; in this case about how many people don't go to stores for Black Friday or go "intensely" online for Cyber Monday.

I've never been to the Friday scrambles and now, with back issues, never will. And I have never found anything on Cyber Monday that I wanted.

So in one case, it is the physical hassle and the other is simply "nothing I want". But others may have other reasons for not engaging in those sales and I wonder if there is a marking opportunity for companies by targeting non-participants. That would involve finding commonalities in "why" they did not engage in those sales events.

I'm reminded of going in to help programming a station that had done an extensive and expensive research project on morning shows, analyzing their own show and those of several near competitors. They dug very deep in content, how many songs and service elements. But the result was confusing an inconclusive..

I asked to see the questionnaire. They never qualified the participants with a simple question set beginning with "Do you regularly listen to radio between 6 AM and 10 AM?". Obviously, many participants were not morning listeners or were only news/talk morning listeners. By tabulating the "never listen to" for each examined show, we found lots of ones that never listened at all to any; cutting them out made the results much clearer.

So is there a commonality of non-users of this weekend's sales events that can be used to market to those consumers? And.... do those people have money to spend to begin with? Finding non-participants in Black Friday who say, "I don't have any money and they cut off my credit card" is not useful... but you have to ask the right questions.

 

[michael hagerty]

As a marketing major from college, I always have curiosity about consumer patterns; in this case about how many people don't go to stores for Black Friday or go "intensely" online for Cyber Monday.

I've never been to the Friday scrambles and now, with back issues, never will. And I have never found anything on Cyber Monday that I wanted.

So in one case, it is the physical hassle and the other is simply "nothing I want". But others may have other reasons for not engaging in those sales and I wonder if there is a marking opportunity for companies by targeting non-participants. That would involve finding commonalities in "why" they did not engage in those sales events.

I'm reminded of going in to help programming a station that had done an extensive and expensive research project on morning shows, analyzing their own show and those of several near competitors. They dug very deep in content, how many songs and service elements. But the result was confusing an inconclusive..

I asked to see the questionnaire. They never qualified the participants with a simple question set beginning with "Do you regularly listen to radio between 6 AM and 10 AM?". Obviously, many participants were not morning listeners or were only news/talk morning listeners. By tabulating the "never listen to" for each examined show, we found lots of ones that never listened at all to any; cutting them out made the results much clearer.

So is there a commonality of non-users of this weekend's sales events that can be used to market to those consumers? And.... do those people have money to spend to begin with? Finding non-participants in Black Friday who say, "I don't have any money and they cut off my credit card" is not useful... but you have to ask the right questions.

Neither have I, David. Black Friday looks like sheer hell.

I used it mainly as a topical response to his comment "and who physically goes to stores anymore?". I could just as easily have pointed out that people must, or else physical stores would no longer exist.

 

[tbolt909]

I don't know. I sort of pictured one complaint bringing the investigator to town, who then would walk in and out of stores, restaurants, etc. just to see what he or she could hear in the other establishments. I'm also assuming that in major cities (NY, LA, Chicago), there was probably someone there year-round just making visits.

The people I talked to said that one day a guy just showed up, asked them what radio station that was, then asked "do you always play it in the store, or do you listen to other stations or play recorded music, too?" Next question would be "how long you been doing that?" and then out would come the business card, and a brief conversation about becoming a licensed establishment.

If there wasn't an immediate agreement to become licensed, that's when the strongly worded letters would show up.

I'm pretty sure businesses cannot use a Radio station on their phone system either. For example, some places had Radio playing when they placed a caller on hold. They could be fined for that. I knew a guy who created custom "On Hold" messages for companies and he had to pay to use a licensed music library from DeWolfe...

 

[davideduardo]

Neither have I, David. Black Friday looks like sheer hell.

I used it mainly as a topical response to his comment "and who physically goes to stores anymore?". I could just as easily have pointed out that people must, or else physical stores would no longer exist.

Again, the value of well done research comes out.

I don't buy trousers and jeans at stores, because I am an "odd" size in both waist and length. In the bigger name stores, from Walmart to Target to Macy's to Penny's they seem to only have odd size increments (at least in this market) and I never, ever find what I want. Yet, online, I find those sizes with ease and have convenient no-cost returns and exchanges.

I've never seen this selling point addressed. So I just buy online. I wonder if the retailers know there are issues like this which are easily marketable and which would bring folks in to "touch and feel" the garments? "Hey, we have both odd and even sizes and you can touch and feel them... don't wait for days just to find the are too rough or too soft or two thin or too thick... come in now and leave with the size and feel that really makes you happy and proud!"

 

[michael hagerty]

Again, the value of well done research comes out.

I don't buy trousers and jeans at stores, because I am an "odd" size in both waist and length. In the bigger name stores, from Walmart to Target to Macy's to Penny's they seem to only have even size increments (at least in this market) and I never, ever find what I want. Yet, online, I find those sizes with ease and have convenient no-cost returns and exchanges.

I've never seen this selling point addressed. So I just buy online. I wonder if the retailers know there are issues like this which are easily marketable and which would bring folks in to "touch and feel" the garments? "Hey, we have both odd and even sizes and you can touch and feel them... don't wait for days just to find the are too rough or too soft or two thin or too thick... come in now and leave with the size and feel that really makes you happy and proud!"

And stores used to be like that. But accountants figured out that odd sizes move slowly, so why occupy valuable store shelf space? Keep those in a warehouse and ship them on demand.

I prefer the old approach, myself, but if it were my business, I might feel differently.

 

[davideduardo]

And stores used to be like that. But accountants figured out that odd sizes move slowly, so why occupy valuable store shelf space? Keep those in a warehouse and ship them on demand.

I prefer the old approach, myself, but if it were my business, I might feel differently.

The problem there is when couples and families buy together, the one who knows that they never find a correct size will not want to go shopping at all!

One of the big plus factors of outlet malls is that brand-owned stores tend to carry the full line and not just more popular sizes and styles. But I never see that advertised; perhaps they know that those of us who need odd sizes have that already figured out.

 

[michael hagerty]

The problem there is when couples and families buy together, the one who know that they never find a correct size will not want to go shopping at all!

One of the big plus factors of outlet malls is that brand-owned stores tend to carry the full line and not just more popular sizes and styles. But I never see that advertised; perhaps they know that those of us who need odd sizes have that already figured out.

Could be, and I feel your pain. I don't know why odd (as opposed to even)-numbered inseams should be a hard thing to find, but they are. Going pants shopping is always a hassle.

 

[radiofan2023]

Neither have I, David. Black Friday looks like sheer hell.

I used it mainly as a topical response to his comment "and who physically goes to stores anymore?". I could just as easily have pointed out that people must, or else physical stores would no longer exist.

I’m subscribed to a bunch of spice/food company marketing emails and I just used some of them to try new to me products for the first time, when they went on sale on Black Friday. There will probably be more tomorrow for Cyber Monday too. Plus some of them threw in free shipping.

 

[boombox4]

One of the articles talked about the alleged copyright infringement being for the songwriters of a song that was performed at a karaoke night.

That happened at a few karaoke spots in the Seattle area when karaoke was still popular. I never heard of any of them getting busted, but I knew a few karaoke show DJs (and a couple managers of the pubs) and they talked about having to ensure that they had their licensing up to date. If I remember correctly, at least one venue got a visit, and their licensing was up to date but the proprietor was a little unnerved just the same.