SuperQ said:
OK... Please allow me to establish an understanding here...
Sure thing, just let me know when you're ready to start working on that, instead of pulling out your thesaurus to help with your whine.
(2) A fair and proper station audience evaluation based on its P-1 listeners ONLY—P-2s and 3s are incidental because they lumber in “a subliminal fog”.
Your words, certainly not mine. I'm not even sure where you conjured that comparison up from frankly.
(3) Stations should magically absorb outrageous audience measurement costs so buyers can pay less than dime-on-the-dollar for such and fire up “CPM Cruncher v87.4” on the cubicle PC to further advance a self-serving agenda.
Judging from the pity-party you just tried to throw, "self-serving agendas" are something you're pretty familiar with. Remember, I've been on both sides of the business under discussion & frankly I'm about equally unimpressed with both. In other words, if you're expecting me to attempt some impassioned defense of the average agency buyer, you're in for a long wait. At the same time, the current average radio order taker isn't any better.
(4) Commercial matter shouldn’t exceed five units per hour—unless a procrastinating buyer finds their backside against a hot-plate and expects the station to accept a last-minute order.
Once again, you seem to have me confused with someone else. I have not, nor do I suspect I ever will, be a part of the chirping chorus oh-so-concerned about unit load. AFAIC, that "crisis" was primarily an invention of people who couldn't sell ice water in Hell
and media buyers who don't even understand what all those numbers they use mean in the first place, both sides trying to find something to blame for their own ineptitude.
(5) SHAME should fall upon on those stations who dare present a rate card... Despite terms 1 thru 4—Hatchets are still an acceptable “tool of the trade”.
Hatchets are woefully inadequate when faced with a steady parade of radio ordertakers who blindly insist that they're 0.2 rating is somehow worth a CPM that's 2x-5x the cost of the same impressions in television. One of the advantages radio used to have was that it was more cost efficient than other options but those days are a long time past now (which is the biggest gripe I was airing earlier). Similar CPM I can understand, even a bit higher in some circumstances, no problem. But when you get markets in the 100's trying to get rates that look like top 30 markets, and there's clearly not enough demand to justify it, well I may have been born on a Tuesday but it wasn't
this Tuesday. And alas, neither are all of my clients ... which they point out once they stop laughing at the notion of paying higher prices for fewer impressions of radio vs TV.
In a simpler and less-stressful time, if our rates were dismissed—the polite response would be: “Sorry... Can’t meet your needs—you’re entitled to keep expenses low, but we’re expected to meet ours plus a good return... Without a profit—we can’t assist you in earning one.” Then, confidently leave the room.
See, that I wouldn't have a problem with. No matter how much we might wish it were so, every opportunity simply won't result in a reasonable deal for both sides, sometimes things just don't add up. It happens, thanks for trying, see you next time, no big deal. But instead of that, for every one rep who seems to actually understand it, there's four others who can't seem to grasp the concept. Just because Brand X is willing to pay whatever rate doesn't mean that Brand Y is too, different budgets, different priorities, different goals.
Instead, I feel like I ought to start handing out cheese & crackers to go with all the whine.
There's no mystery when I buy (or don't buy), I'm about as communicative as they come. If somebody isn't on a buy, I'm more than willing to explain the reasons in a post-mortem, absolve you of responsibility to your boss if need be, or whatever you need. What I
won't do, however, is waste either of our time with "negotiating" if you're initial submission came at CPP 5x higher than 9 others stations who submitted for a 5 station buy. Let's be honest: you're not going cut the rate that far, and I'm not willing to overpay for the body count, so why waste your time or mine on something that isn't going to happen? And if you
do drop the rate far enough to get in, then you just made my $### list since you've admitted you were trying to rip me off from the beginning.
And that's on top of (another pet peeve coming, be forewarned) the fact that it appears radio has decided to accumulate all of the failed local cable system traffic people to handle their own traffic needs. Between reps who can't write a very simple order properly and traffic departments who can't manage to understand things like "Monday 7a-9a means Monday 7a-9a ... not Thursday at 10:03a", the success rate of spots actually airing as ordered runs lower than TV news during political season. If I could manage to get spots in the proper place back in the days of handwritten logs, then surely it seems reasonable that you could manage roughly the same with several GB's worth of computer processing power helping you out. When local cable systems in Podunk, MS are doing a better job than Top 20 or Top 10 radio markets, there's a problem.
As I mentioned up the thread, my comments weren't (and aren't) specifically about Atlanta, they were about radio on the whole. Atlanta isn't actually on the list of worst offenders that I've dealt with, although there are some here too (especially with regard to the problems with simple tasks like writing & trafficking orders accurately). But regardless of market the bottom line is that raising rates steadily while bleeding listeners at a equally steady pace is
not a winning technique, and at some point it gets downright silly. If you can find people willing to buy it, more power to you, I don't mind. Seriously, I've been there, have friends who are still there, if you can get paid then I'm happy for you. Just don't get mad at the ones who actually have some idea how all those numbers add up and tell you "no thanks".
