Wha’s up with this??

[airwaves1123]

AMEN TZ!! I just get my back up against the wall when someone, as I perceived Boyd, without personal involvement or real understanding of a concept tends to degrade it. These are tough times and I encourage any station to pursue new and innovative means of helping merchants promote their business and listeners save money. I do not carry water for WJQS although I do find their concept awesome and have found myself listening to them often. They have very timely financially oriented shows - something different from typical stations. Also, they have Old Time Radio Shows on the weekend.

 

[lfuss]

For the record, "Mr. Boyd" is J. Boyd Ingram. He's a life-long broadcaster who knows his stuff. I learned quite a lot from Mr. Ingram.

LF

 

[tzbarber]

For the record, "Mr. Boyd" is J. Boyd Ingram. He's a life-long broadcaster who knows his stuff. I learned quite a lot from Mr. Ingram.

LF

Guess I should of clarified that, Larry. Meant to refer to him as "Mr. J. Boyd".

 

[DouglasB]

AMEN TZ!! I just get my back up against the wall when someone, as I perceived Boyd, without personal involvement or real understanding of a concept tends to degrade it. These are tough times and I encourage any station to pursue new and innovative means of helping merchants promote their business and listeners save money. I do not carry water for WJQS although I do find their concept awesome and have found myself listening to them often. They have very timely financially oriented shows - something different from typical stations. Also, they have Old Time Radio Shows on the weekend.

I don’t know where to begin on this one. First off, airwaves1123, your choice of the word "ignorant" says much about you, sir. You could have merely stated that someone, in your opinion, was not knowledgeable about something. You might even have indicated that the person was unfamiliar with said item. Instead, you chose to use a word that, when stated in print, carries a much more negative connotation. As I have followed this conversation, it's clear to me that Mr. Ingram, whom I have known for 33 years, is, indeed, not ignorant, nor unknowledgeable, or even unfamiliar with this concept. My take is that Mr. Ingram simply has an opinion on the subject and that opinion offends you. Why are you offended? Because it’s personal. I’ll talk about that in a minute.

Now, airwaves1123, or Tom, as you indicate is your name, you appear to be a fraud. The Tom Tipton I know manages at TV station in St. Louis. Another Mr. Tipton works for Sinclair. I don't think you are either. You’ve owned radio and TV stations? Why hide behind a screen name that is so easily typed with one hand? Further, your original post tells the tale.

Hey..thanks for posting the Shopping Show info on 1400AM. I wound up buying a Gift Certificate to AJ's Restaurant at half price. Its a great concept. I like their financial programming too. They need to get the word out. Great station. Hope they get a lot more merchants on it. Why pay retail when you don't have to!!!!

Please note how you position yourself as just a regular person by the words you use. You come off, not as a seasoned broadcaster with years of experience familiar with all types of business models, but as a cheerleader for either this radio station, or the product/concept being discussed. My gut feeling is you are probably associated with both. Simply, your message was a plant to drive further traffic to the station and enhance whatever financial interest you have in this product/concept. Further, your total of 5 posts are all on this topic, it’s clear what’s going on here. Mr. Ingram, for whom I have the utmost respect, slaps your little gimmick in the dirt, and then you attack him and then hide behind your own words. Tom, if that is your real name, this is despicable. It’s one thing to defend your “product” and it’s quite another to personally attack an individual for expressing their opinion, no matter what umbrage you take.

So, I’ve no doubt honked you off. So, come after me now. Go ahead. I agree with Mr. Ingram, that this concept is flawed and doesn’t have the staying power to last long. Get rich quick, then cut and run. Legal, yes. Ethical, you know the rest.

 

[nolaradiobuff]

Douglas - I'm not sticking up for Airwaves/Tom, nor would I be stupid enough to call J. Boyd "Ignorant" (by the way Airwaves, calling anyone "Ignorant" especially when you don't know them is repulsive) but, at least regarding this "concept", the "concept" itself is not "unethical". It may have been done by some people in an unethical manner but, traditional radio sales has also been done by some in an unethical manner. I think most towns have had their share of unscrupulous sales people and owners.

The "concept" can work if done correctly. I've seen it done properly in several places. It is not "get rich quick" and it is not for every advertiser or business type. But, it can generate revenue and, in this day and age, to paraphrase an old BTO song "any revenue is good revenue".

If you don't like the "concept", fine. But, unethical it isn't.

As to staying power, I know stations that have done this for years successfully and added incremental revenue to their bottom lines. Does it take work to manage the program? Of course. It's not a panacea for radio ills. Can it help a station generate more NTR? There's no doubt about that.

One last thing, I think some of your points about Airwaves are spot on.

With that being said, I'm going back to the Louisiana board.

 

[DouglasB]

Douglas - I'm not sticking up for Airwaves/Tom, nor would I be stupid enough to call J. Boyd "Ignorant" (by the way Airwaves, calling anyone "Ignorant" especially when you don't know them is repulsive) but, at least regarding this "concept", the "concept" itself is not "unethical".
The "concept" can work if done correctly. I've seen it done properly in several places. It is not "get rich quick" and it is not for every advertiser or business type. But, it can generate revenue and, in this day and age, to paraphrase an old BTO song "any revenue is good revenue".
If you don't like the "concept", fine. But, unethical it isn't.

As to staying power, I know stations that have done this for years successfully and added incremental revenue to their bottom lines. Does it take work to manage the program? Of course. It's not a panacea for radio ills. Can it help a station generate more NTR? There's no doubt about that.

One last thing, I think some of your points about Airwaves are spot on.

With that being said, I'm going back to the Louisiana board.

nolradiobuff: Thanks for taking me to woodshed on this one. I’ll change my stance on the ethical aspect of this “concept”. If my stations were in trouble, or were facing a fight for survival, I still might not choose that avenue.

I do think we can both agree that posting with the intent to deceive, and personal attacks are not the kind of behavior that you nor I would feel comfortable with.

Enjoy the Louisiana board, and if Mike Benson pops up, tell him “hi”.
Regards….

 

[nolaradiobuff]

Douglas - Absolutely. There's no need for personal attacks and this board is not the venue to promote a station or promote anything. We should also welcome comments from our more experienced posters like Mr. Ingram and Mr. Fuss. I'm sure they have seen it all and done it all and probably have forgotten more about radio than I'll ever know.

Glad to hear your stations are doing well. In this day and age, we need all the good news we can get.

 

[Fran]

I just returned from a seminar dealing with electronic advertising. PMI (point of media impact) is the flavor of the day buzzword. At the risk of identifying PMI as a coupon, what PMI basically is, is a coupon. PMI can be implemented in many ways. . . “advertiser of the day” by posting a one-half off coupon on their station web site. Bottom line, merchants are demanding clear results.

As a side note, the reason that PMI is suddenly important is because DVR TV viewers are skipping ads. . . the commercial avoidance data is alarming and steadily increasing. For that reason watch for one minute commercial breaks. . . the point is to outmaneuver the DVR user. The one minute commercial break will become a necessity for radio too (air 3 20 second commercials, etc.), but one minute is the key. The day of running three minutes of solid commercials are over . . . ditto for the standalone sixty second commercial.

 

[bobrall]

Bill Drake is back. Two units one minute max between songs.
Clear Channel is doing two breaks each hour with ten or twelve units in each...death!
Typical of CC's complete disregard of the customer's needs. Copy stinks too. Too many clients doing
there own poor copy on air.
There is an opening for someone to come up with effective website advertising...
a new format or style. What's up there now is clutter. But, with the
enormous page views of some stations, the potential is there....
Banner ads won't do it...

 

[Fran]

Clear Channel is doing two breaks each hour with ten or twelve units in each...death!

True, which makes placing advertising today a challenge. Newspapers are in the toilet, DVRs have made TV problematic, yellow pages (threw that in for levity), billboards (c’mon), internet (can u say “fragmentation”) and radio fighting with IPODs and the like, plus their long commercial sets. In the long run radio has the best chance to turn itself around. But, it will take a near total purging of the those now in the owner's seat.

Well, it could happen. Let’s see who the new operators are after the current owners default on their loans.

 

[tomservo]

Re: Wha’s up with this??

As a side note, the reason that PMI is suddenly important is because DVR TV viewers are skipping ads. . . the commercial avoidance data is alarming and steadily increasing. For that reason watch for one minute commercial breaks. . . the point is to outmaneuver the DVR user. The one minute commercial break will become a necessity for radio too (air 3 20 second commercials, etc.), but one minute is the key. The day of running three minutes of solid commercials are over . . . ditto for the standalone sixty second commercial.

It's going to be a long hard road to training listeners that there's only a minute of commercials, I think. Everyone I know who listens to radio, myself included, hears a commercial and flips to another station. Two big reasons why: Repetition, as in "I've heard the same commercials a hundred times already" and TSW — Time Spent Waiting — for music to come back on is too dang long!

Keeping commercial breaks short and keeping the commercials fresh would really help even casual listeners to 'linger longer'. The question is, can radio stations make good money by actually reducing the number of commercials they play in a day? I don't mean redistributing commercials from two six minute long blocks to six blocks of two minutes each, I mean actually playing just four or eight minutes of commercials an hour.

 

[Fran]

The question is, can radio stations make good money by actually reducing the number of commercials they play in a day?

The station plays the same number of commercials by simply adding breaks. Last night “Dollhouse” stopped several times and before each break announced, “We’ll be back in sixty seconds.” Their sixty (and ninety) second breaks flew by. “World News Tonight,” is also airing thirty-second breaks. Watch for radio to return to short breaks in the near future. Now that money is very tight, commercials need to count. . . . advertisers can no longer afford to be part of a three minute break. In today’s corporate radio, what the advertisers says, goes. Example: Budweiser says that they will now pay their bills every 120 days . . . corp radio is on-board with that. What does that tell you?

We sort of drifted away from the topic of radio shopping. I only listened once this week (for 15 minutes) and while they were offering some good deals, I only heard one person call and that call was a train wreck. Has anyone here listened?

 

[bobrall]

I tried to listen but I was in Crossgates and you can't pick them up much after to get into Rankin County. Lot's of static.
Their tower must be in Clinton or someplace...
I saw their printed material in a restaurant...the manager said no one has come in since they started a couple of weeks ago.