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The Delta
- Thread starter nuffsaid
- Start date
Exactly. Everyone seems to be in your pocket from utilities to goverments as a whole to the RIAA/Ascrap/BMI/Sesacks to the FCC themselves. Because radio used to be more of a money generator, everyone still thinks we print money. After paying the help and all the leaches, in some markets it's cheaper to turn in the license.
Sorry, Music, but indications were you were a first timer...my bad. So, you know there is no magic formula as to price VS feasibility. Every deal is different...and I have experienced both sides of the equation. Thankfully, after 53 years in the business, I am easing out. Best to you. J Boyd ( and...the sad part is I was born and raised in the Delta, and can remember the glory days it experienced....)
We constantly hear the problems with Da Delta but there has to be some kind of answer to resolve the problems. As Larry Fuss mentioned months ago, there is a lack of understanding of the advertising community concerning the need to advertising. We all know advertising is nothing more than an invitation to come in and shop but most are not extending that invitation. Most advertisers are sitting on their butts waiting for customers to come in and make them an offer on their merchandise. I also feel some of the problems stem from sellers with little or no selling knowlege. The Delta was a fantastic area and maybe one day it will return to the glorious days of old!
I know, in Mississippi it is blasphemy for me to associate "Delta" and Arkansas, but back in what some are calling The Glory Days, I worked in radio in the Delta... on the Arkansas side. Same issues on both side of the river.
Most of us couldn't see the whole picture at the time, some us didn't want to see the whole picture at the time, and we couldn't imagine the changes that were coming.
The "planters" were gods... as least in their own minds. Too many of the merchants were... were... can I say this? They were "retail share-croppers". Many of the buildings from which retailers operated were owned by farmers looking for places to invest their farm profits. (The American public in rural America for the most part had not discovered the stock market and brokerage firms were not geared to do "retail investing".
The "planters" would drive into town, walk into the appliance store and offer to buy a new refrigerator for 10% over invoice and quietly explain this was a "take it or leave it" offer because they knew where to go in Memphis to get such a pricing accommodation. That meant the retailer when faced with an advertising purchase decision, knew he was going to only be effective at reaching the share-croppers and the field hands. Yes, maybe some of us were not good salesmen, but we were working with proppects who felt trapped.
The good news was that radio reached out into the rural homes back when local newspapers teneded to have very little circulation that reached outside the city limits. People living on the farms take their choice of two or three county seat towns, all about the same distance from home. Radio advertising was effective at getting them into "your town, your store".
But in the 1950s a new trend was observable. Schools were becoming the place for after-school activities which meant saying there when the bus ran, and calling Mama when you were ready for a ride home. And when the "planter" enjoying the good fortunes of farming was ready to build a new house, Mama said: You go to work once a day. I drive to town multiple times a day: kids to school, beauty shop, grocery shopping, circle meeting a church, etc. etc etc. Let's build the new house IN TOWN and you can drive to the farm once a day. It was a merchants dream come true: the customers now lived in town and had little incentive to drive to the next county seat 20 miles away because eggs were 10-cents a dozen cheaper.
And in that same era all these little factories moved into the Delta from northern cities. It was indeed a golden era. Little did we know that by the time the first lease on the factory building was ready for renewal that many of the factories would move on to Mexico. And little did the Mexicans know that their new-found employment would soon move on to China.
My last trip to the Delta where I got off the "super slab" and went back to towns were I had lived and drive the old back roads was six years ago. The place was unrecognizable!!!
If some station owner in the Delta called me today and said: I'll gift you 50% ownership of the station in three years if you will come in here, straighten the place out, and make it gin again.... I would have to say: "Pass. I wouldn't know where to start under today's circumstances."
Most of us couldn't see the whole picture at the time, some us didn't want to see the whole picture at the time, and we couldn't imagine the changes that were coming.
The "planters" were gods... as least in their own minds. Too many of the merchants were... were... can I say this? They were "retail share-croppers". Many of the buildings from which retailers operated were owned by farmers looking for places to invest their farm profits. (The American public in rural America for the most part had not discovered the stock market and brokerage firms were not geared to do "retail investing".
The "planters" would drive into town, walk into the appliance store and offer to buy a new refrigerator for 10% over invoice and quietly explain this was a "take it or leave it" offer because they knew where to go in Memphis to get such a pricing accommodation. That meant the retailer when faced with an advertising purchase decision, knew he was going to only be effective at reaching the share-croppers and the field hands. Yes, maybe some of us were not good salesmen, but we were working with proppects who felt trapped.
The good news was that radio reached out into the rural homes back when local newspapers teneded to have very little circulation that reached outside the city limits. People living on the farms take their choice of two or three county seat towns, all about the same distance from home. Radio advertising was effective at getting them into "your town, your store".
But in the 1950s a new trend was observable. Schools were becoming the place for after-school activities which meant saying there when the bus ran, and calling Mama when you were ready for a ride home. And when the "planter" enjoying the good fortunes of farming was ready to build a new house, Mama said: You go to work once a day. I drive to town multiple times a day: kids to school, beauty shop, grocery shopping, circle meeting a church, etc. etc etc. Let's build the new house IN TOWN and you can drive to the farm once a day. It was a merchants dream come true: the customers now lived in town and had little incentive to drive to the next county seat 20 miles away because eggs were 10-cents a dozen cheaper.
And in that same era all these little factories moved into the Delta from northern cities. It was indeed a golden era. Little did we know that by the time the first lease on the factory building was ready for renewal that many of the factories would move on to Mexico. And little did the Mexicans know that their new-found employment would soon move on to China.
My last trip to the Delta where I got off the "super slab" and went back to towns were I had lived and drive the old back roads was six years ago. The place was unrecognizable!!!
If some station owner in the Delta called me today and said: I'll gift you 50% ownership of the station in three years if you will come in here, straighten the place out, and make it gin again.... I would have to say: "Pass. I wouldn't know where to start under today's circumstances."
Somebody is doing business! I understand one of the problems in Greenville and other surrounding communities is the rates .. kind of like the comment about the farmer purchases a new frig .. offer 10% above cost and be ready to walk. What business that is being done in radio is like this, the clients know stations are hurting and they are driving the cost. The broadcaster that trains a staff and sticks to their guns will eventually win. Larry Fuss is on the road and only hope he has the staying power to outlast those old line retailers who beat up sellers and the area managers who have their drawers down around their ankles most of the time. Radio in the any of the smaller cities have got to get themselves up to speed and demand higher rates .. they deserve it! Dollar a holler when the way of the horse and carriage.
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