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The Swap Shop your thoughts.

G

Groove1670

Guest
Okay. We are looking to add a swap shop to our Fm. We are very rural (Pop less than 15000). It would be a half hour to start with 9-9:30 AM. I would like to hear about some FM success stories (I know WWUS in the Florida Keys is one, and you would think is not your typical swap shop market but it works) Pros/Cons thoughts. Thanks (BTW our format is Classic Hits).
 
If you are in a very rural non-rated market without much competition then anything you can do to generate community interaction with your radio station is fair game. Some of our stations, including highly-rated stations in smaller Arbitron markets, do on-air auctions once of twice a year. Many also do high school sports and cover parades and festivals/fairs, regardless of format.

My own personal experience with Swap Shop/Trading Post/Tradio style programs dates back 30+ years ago in towns of 5,000 or so--and was very positive. It was like the whole town stopped to see what was being offered... or to slap something on there themselves.

Here's one caution, though. Whoever the host is for this kind of show has to get a kick out of it. If it's your idea, you might be the guy. You can't just stick somebody on there who thinks it's a stupid idea or a task/chore. Some days are diamonds & some are dust, but most of the time these shows are a hoot.
 
Thanks. That brings up another question. The radio auction. Do you offer the client spot face value for the service or product when you do this, do you target clients that normally wouldn't run radio (or any advertising).
 
Half an hour is a very long block for swap shop. Try 10 minutes.

In my general area, 102.3 FM WCBK has been doing swap shop for decades at Noon at the end of their extended newscast. National/State/Local News, Sports, Obits and Swap Shop usually makes up a half hour show.
 
There is a station over in the next county that has been doing the swap shop on Saturday mornings from 8am til 12noon!! It is wildly popular. Then they added Wednesday mornings 7am til 10am. Its a class A FM with a base format of classic country. I wish I had something to counter program them!
 
We plan to sell call Ins during the half. IE car dealership calling in car we plan to sell two business spots in the show 3 min each. The rest will be dedicated to callers.
 
You have some choices to make in planning your swap shop.

Live phone calls with listeners voicing their own information.... or capturing the information so the station staff can read the items.

Letting the listeners do their own is certainly the least expensive way to go... but it also creates a program full of voices unable to articulate their message in a way the average human ear can understand/comprehend the info.

The most successful swap shop I ever saw (but many, many years ago) had a format where station personnel voice the announcements, and there were always TWO voices alternating. As a "reader" you focus on one announcement at a time as you read that one.

The most pitiful swap shops I have listened to were voiced by a single announcer, droning through a series of items as though the entire show was one long, long, boring speech to be read.

By all means, the host of the show must, MUST think swap shop is a great idea, and have an "I can make this thing work and work well" attitude about it.
 
While visiting relatives in eastern Tennessee last fall, I noticed that two stations (WLIL-AM and WYXI-AM) were doing Swap Shop programs during the 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. slot. Both stations seemed to be loaded with items and had a pretty decent spot load as well.

A station I used to work for had a variation of this with something called "Marketplace." They would sell this by having the business "trade" advertising in exchange for discount coupons
which the station would sell to listeners.

This show was to be an hour. At first, I was the board op/producer/one of the call screeners
for this show. When it was full of items to sell, no problem. When it wasn't, that was a lot of time to fill.

Toward the end of its run, I found myself (unexpectedly) the host of this show. I decided to intersperse the items with music. That ended up working well until at last we all felt the time had come to pull the plug on it. It was a blast, and did get a lot of calls. The station had four lines, and almost every day they'd be full.

But the Swap Shop programs I remember locally (we don't have any now) were mostly the ones where you'd hear things like "I'm Mrs. Johnson and I have a TV for sale for $5. It's black and white and you have to hit it on the side sometimes but it's still a decent TV. Call me at 000-0000 if ya want it..."

I hope this works out for you.
 
All the versions we have in our area except one let the callers basically sell their items. Usually it seems to make them more interested in the item, and they can have some give-and-take with the host and give some details if things aren't clear. There are also regulars who call in, and it seems like they have built some kind of community up for the two-hours-on-a-weekend or 30-minutes-on-a-weekday that the different ones do it. There's a few who call in who can't articulate fer nuthin' but I don't think most inarticulate people want to call in. Most of the ones who have trouble talking in this area are elderly, invalid, or have some health problems, which often also becomes something else to talk about (and fill time, some days).

The only one I've heard that read all the items was droning and uninterested. Probably some of the items were already sold anyway, because you had to have them into the station by the day before. Try and avoid that.

As for including business items on the air, there is the whole gamut of that too: one is "sponsored" by a local charity organization with other local commercials interspersed, a couple only have the host and sometimes a second host doing live reads. I imagine that whatever you can sell or trade (that's even what the show is about) is what determines the stations' options there.
 
Thanks for the great information. I've been involved with three stations in the past with Swap shops and it has worked out well. I think banter with the callers is the key, and it builds a loyal following. It doesn't cost the caller nothing. When the advertisers listen, they know you have an audience, and listeners hear their neighbors. It is local radio at its finest.
 
There is a fine line that you have to attempt to ride. Get too folksy, too "hickish" with the listeners and you lose some key audience (maybe those business people who need to hear the banter to understand radio) and get too "high-falootin" and you lose the listeners with the humanity to make the show sparkle.... and the items to trade and sell.
 
I think if you communicate with the listener in a conversational manner it works well. Don't try to force it or act like you are taking a menu order from the caller.
 
musiconradio.com said:
Thanks for the great information. I've been involved with three stations in the past with Swap shops and it has worked out well. I think banter with the callers is the key, and it builds a loyal following. It doesn't cost the caller nothing. When the advertisers listen, they know you have an audience, and listeners hear their neighbors. It is local radio at its finest.
Click to expand...

While it was over a decade ago, I did a swap shop on a 50 kw AM in LA, and the ratings were in the top 5 in the market in the early Saturday morning time slot (6-8 AM) it occupied. While corny, we did what would translate as "Junk and Jokes" where a person could announce their old sofa for sale in exchange for telling a joke (delay in place). Because half of a joke is in the telling, and people seem to enjoy (Idol tryouts, anyone?) people stumbling on themselves, the show ran for years

As GRC says, the show has to sound natural, not overdone and not pandering.

We also restricted used cars to those priced below $2 k, or we would get used car sales slugs calling in with their cell phone numbers... but that's a whole different part of the species.
 
David, Thanks for the 2K note. When I did my last swapshop, cellphones were just ramping up. 1994.
 
While I love the idea of putting the callers on the air to pitch their stuff, DavidEduardo is the only one so far to mention having a delay in place. As soon as some crank realizes you are on live they will call and say something inappropriate putting your license on the line. Delays arent cheap either. That is why I have been hesitant to do something like this.
 
While I love the idea of putting the callers on the air to pitch their stuff, DavidEduardo is the only one so far to mention having a delay in place. As soon as some crank realizes you are on live they will call and say something inappropriate putting your license on the line. Delays arent cheap either. That is why I have been hesitant to do something like this.
Click to expand...

Your always gonna have an idiot or two out there that will try this. However there are may small towns that have swap shops with no delay I would say most. Usually the cranks stay away especially if it is during weekday morning hours. A delay is not an option for most small market stations. The only other option is to screen the call before they go on the air. I'm sure the FCC is not going to bust a small market station for the one lonesome idiot. Plus remind callers you have caller ID. :-X

In fact that might be a great line. WXXX tracks phone #'s are are subject to verification before caller and item is put on the air, website,etc. That might be one for the legal dept.
 
Some "swap shop" programs on some stations I've heard have some kind of highest dollar amount you can sell something for. Others don't. And some of these callers are just BIZARRE.

I heard one guy call in to sell his old camper "It's a full size camper, about 40 years old, my dad owned it and my dogs used to sleep in it and I ain't got no more dogs anymore and now I just wanna get rid of it as-is"

"OK, can you describe it for the listeners?"

"Umm...yeah, it's old. Don't think the stove works and the dogs lived in it. The siding is coming apart."

"So how much are you asking for it?"

"$10,000"

(A few seconds of dead air)

"Di-Did you say $10,000?"

"Yes siree I did"

(Another few seconds of dead air)

I heard a quiet sigh of resignation from the announcer, then "OK then, what's your number......"
 
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