Connoisseur (I hate trying to spell that one) has CT synergies that can be employed in sales. It's a good strategic move for them, as is going to higher market revenue Allentown is for Cumulus.
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Why Does Cumulus Prefer Indianapolis Over New York?
- Thread starter Barry
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Connoisseur (I hate trying to spell that one) has CT synergies that can be employed in sales. It's a good strategic move for them, as is going to higher market revenue Allentown is for Cumulus.
I actually think you and I are on the same page, BigA. Like you, I own various businesses and some are broadcasting-related, but most are not. My approach has been that no matter what business it is, that the "customer" is what matters. In my retail businesses, you have to provide the right products and best service. Especially when you cannot "compete" on price. That is always a no win, heartless battle. In radio it's the best music (etc.) and on-air sound. Of course, given your signal strength and competition, it's how you drive revenues. So the business models are actually very similar. I guess one of my better business abilities is being able to see changes down the road. In fact, three years ago, my primary business had a major regulatory change that should have taken almost 30-50% of our business away. That happened to 99% of my competitors. Our team took a different approach and we have grown by 50% per year. Never lost a beat. It was a blend of take no no's, hard work, 24/7 drive and even a bit of optimism. Planning was the key. Paying attention to details and having multiple visions of paths as we saw the positive responses on what worked was an absolute. Additionally we simply did not take "no" for an answer. I guess, like you, pointing fingers and needless legal stupidity just is not part of my business equation. That helped hurt radio for sure. A literal inside hack job. You just keep moving forward. Not that I have done everything perfect. You know some (hell, many) of my missteps. I do think radio, in particular, grew too fast, companies bought signals at insanely stupid multiples to just get a bunch of sticks and then they dead panned the sound and bored listeners away and drove advertisers elsewhere. The major corps all played follow the leader right down the tubes. But, it has continued to happen for too long. That, to me, is N O T acceptable and not smart business and these clown$ ALL knew exactly what was happening. Yes, certainly we all miss and missed market changes. No one is perfect, but what has happened for decades now is more than a miss. No one has really changed the way radio presents itself in decades. But, all of US know what in most important to keeping radio ALIVE. A heart, a soul, a sense of connectedness to the listeners, smarter presentations, less concern for the damn flawed rating system that has also strangled the industry, calling ad agencies out on their utter walk away from the obvious demographics, our own lack of creativity and better marketing, use of old school advertising rules like seven minute SS and of course all the help from our friends at the FCC for managing to clutter up all the local FM dials with static, weak signals and a sound similar to that of AM radio on Germany in the 1940s. The ducks have cooked all of us, already. Look what Amazon and Walmart have done to local ad revenues. But, until each of us sells our business(es) in whatever industry we are in, we have to do all we can to fight and survive against all odds. And frankly, given all the shots radio has taken, it's a wonder it is here it still "is." Yes, tech hurt many genres of the business world. But, we have to give "ourselves" equal credit for doing a fair amount of the harm to ourselves. And by the way, you may disagree on various talking points here, but what "we" all did wrong in radio was simply stop being "we." Gone are the days of single owner stations that often had a bigger staff, a better sound and actually beat each other up on the streets all day, but could still share a beer that afternoon. Radio should not ever have been allowed to be a lame duck.
Oh, and the fact that Cumulus is "selling" all their major market assets is certainly telling. So you are going to make up all this revenue in Market #100? Hmmm.
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Money and Demo's as of this posting that KLOS-FM has a deal to Meruelo Media under an LMA. Note Meruelo also owns KDAY and KDEY in Southern California.
https://www.dailynews.com/2019/04/1...sold-to-meruelo-media-owner-of-kpwr-and-kday/
Also in the Talks that Los Angeles is not a Classic Rock friendly market due to the demos in the area though as noted in that thread though,
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Meruelo also owns a TV operation in the market and has construction, food services, finance, real estate and casino / hotel interests.
Stop blaming the ad agencies: they are intermediaries for their clients, who come to them with marketing plans, often with extensive research, and target consumers already determined.
The long stop set is a product of PPM evaluation... it's the best alternative when you have to run commercials. And it has been in effect only since the PPM arrived, about 10 years ago. It's not an advertising rule, it is a measurement rule.
The ratings system is about as good as you can get anywhere in the world. No poll is perfect, but to evaluate the pricing of radio stations, the current system is adequate and limited only by the sample size that radio is willing to spend for.
As to radio in Germany in the 1940's, I heard a 135 kw WW II German transmitter which was installed in the Caribbean in the 60's... and it was, even after moving and reassembly, one of the finest sounding AMs I ever heard.
Tibbs, I guess you've never been to things like the NAB convention or CRS. I was just in Vegas for the NAB, and competitors still share beers. I know. I had a few.
I don't think they're selling "ALL" their major market assets. Just the unprofitable ones. From what I see, they like the Chicago & Detroit clusters a lot, and probably won't sell them. As I said in another thread, the former ABC stations were overpriced and unprofitable. They're better off being sold.
Sure the amount of cash flow is greater in NY & LA, but so are all the costs. If the net result is a loss, the cash flow doesn't matter, it still goes down at a loss. I've talked to recording artists about playing small venues vs. large venues, and what they said was they prefer selling out small venues than playing a half-empty large venue. That rule applies to radio too.
There is a lot of difference between Star 99.9 and WEBE 108. WEBE 108 still plays quite a bit of older music like from the 70s and 80s. I know Star 99.9 doesn't play the 70s. I don't know about the 80s. I haven't listened in years, but they used to play a lot of 90s and music from the 2000s.
The Star playlist is also a lot harder than WEBE's. I tuned in yesterday after reading the original post and the first thing I heard on WEBE was Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon." The first song I heard on Star was Imagine Dragons' "Natural." Pretty sure only one of the two stations is playing either song. I actually listened to both stations for nearly an hour and the only shared artist I heard was Adele -- different songs, though.
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"Stop blaming the ad agencies: they are intermediaries for their clients, who come to them with marketing plans, often with extensive research, and target consumers already determined."
WHY? From where I stand, agencies and larger advertisers miss a lot of potential customers because they look at an overall larger-scheme formula and that, to a degree, hurts everyone. Fortunately, there are some back doors to overcoming this situation and getting some buys. It is tough for sure, but not impossible. I hope you see my point, based on my perspective vs. say a strong cluster in market #XX.
"The long stop set is a product of PPM evaluation... it's the best alternative when you have to run commercials. And it has been in effect only since the PPM arrived, about 10 years ago. It's not an advertising rule, it is a measurement rule."
Don't disagree with your overview, here either David. I contend the ADS themselves need to change. Length. Message Content. Listeners don't want 60 seconds of fake filler script. "Say it and Play it" applies to PPM logic, yet you force people away with the equivalent on two songs length of ads? How does that make real sense? Especially when you are in a situation where a large portion of your ad revenue is generated on local businesses.
"The ratings system is about as good as you can get anywhere in the world. No poll is perfect, but to evaluate the pricing of radio stations, the current system is adequate and limited only by the sample size that radio is willing to spend for."
Don't disagree, especially if you are buying the book or can afford to buy the book, but there are lots of little mom and pop operators that are basically shut out by the cost and rules of engagement. Plus, sometimes, signal clarity is hurt by the encoding, etc. One size does not fit all, but the current system makes it tough on a small station or cluster. On this issue, I probably need to remain silent.
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For the most part, mid-20th Century European AMs sounded very good. Since 100 kw was considered "low power" the big stations had good coverage and did not have to push the envelope with dense modulation. There was less compression, better dynamic range and few bandwidth-limited directional stations. They really sounded nice.
And because most stations were government owned, transmitters tended to be over-designed, further adding to their fidelity and quality.
LOVE! This is some really great info. I was/am not old enough to remember the stations in the US being unlimited in power before the FCC came along. I do remember hearing the story from a station owner in Florida about his father turning off his very powerful AM station when the FCC said they were going to limit the signal strength to 50kw and requiring a license.
Agencies get fired when they don't follow a client's marketing plan. In most cases, advertisers find that the return on investment of targeting seniors is very low. It simply takes more impressions to make a sale, and that costs way too much. The exception is with products intended for seniors only, but those almost without exception require visual appeal ads and that means print or video.
I've worked much of my career where the 10" and 15" ad are popular, and where 60's are nearly unknown. I agree, but there is tradition, and a fall-back to when ads had to be little stories or demonstrations.
Nonetheless, it's been seen quite conclusively that doing 4 3-minute stops causes more hourly attrition than two 7 minute ones. But that is based on minute by minute measurement; I somehow feel that in the long run... day after day, hour after hour... that a few more much shorter stops would be better. But nobody looks at that is the data is very hard to analyze when it is so granular and not very overview-driven.
"The ratings system is about as good as you can get anywhere in the world. No poll is perfect, but to evaluate the pricing of radio stations, the current system is adequate and limited only by the sample size that radio is willing to spend for."
Don't disagree, especially if you are buying the book or can afford to buy the book, but there are lots of little mom and pop operators that are basically shut out by the cost and rules of engagement. Plus, sometimes, signal clarity is hurt by the encoding, etc. One size does not fit all, but the current system makes it tough on a small station or cluster. On this issue, I probably need to remain silent.
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The encoding only affects the top 48 markets. For most of America's radio stations, it is not an issue. What is the issue is the cost. Even in big markets, there is very little interest in spending for bigger samples as it would take quadruple the sample just to reduce the reliability by one standard error. Nobody will pay for that.
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Licenses were required from the beginning of the 1920's, and the experimental stations of the 1910's had assigned alphanumeric signs, too. At the start, it was the Department of Commerce. Then it was the FRC and then the FCC.
There were very few high power stations when the FCC was chartered in 1933. It was not until around 1930 that even 50 kw hardware was more readily available, and I believe at the start of that year there were only 8 stations running 50 kw (January 1930 White's Radio Log). The only US station authorized by the FCC to run more than 50 kw was WLW, between 1934 and 1939. They ran 500 kw. and were cut back when Congress limited power to 50 kw to prevent stations becoming monopolies based on power.
The only other US station above 50 kw is Radio Martí, but it is not licensed by the FCC.
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Because the radio business is a constantly moving target. When Lew Dickey started this particular incarnation of Cumulus, he had access to billions of dollars, and thought the pockets were deep enough to fund the biggest canvas. Then the rug got pulled out from under him in mid-stream, he got fired, and a new regime came in with another approach. As I said, the target keeps moving, so at one point owning ABC radio seemed like a good idea. Not any more. This current management has no emotional attachment to anything. They gave up 86% of the equity in the company. So the bankers just want to make a profit. They don't care how they do it.
I kind of doubt that story.
WLW could do it because they had the engineering skills and all the money of Crosley behind them. Even NBC and CBS did not try to build such a monster.
The only other 500 kw station in North America during that period was on the Mexican border, the product of Doc Brinkley and his goat glands. It was built on site by James Weldon and Will Branch. http://www.theradiohistorian.org/xer/xer.html
Goat whats? Where? No thank you! But even if the results weren't anything to bleat about, at least I hope the procedure wasn't too ba-a-a-a-a-ad.
InsideRadio has an article today concerning Cumulus' recent station sales and swaps. It mentions that the broadcaster has a number of stations in large markets that are producing low revenue. Apparently Cumulus feels it is best to unload these. The article also states that their strongest major market is Dallas, where their cluster is quite profitable.
I wonder whether other major chains, such as IHeart and Entercom also have quite a few underperformers in major markets that they are looking to trade or sell.
Interesting Article: http://www.insideradio.com/mary-ber...cle_7fd8946c-60dd-11e9-9894-ffb484f61345.html
I wonder whether other major chains, such as IHeart and Entercom also have quite a few underperformers in major markets that they are looking to trade or sell.
Interesting Article: http://www.insideradio.com/mary-ber...cle_7fd8946c-60dd-11e9-9894-ffb484f61345.html
We'll find out once iHeart completes its bankruptcy process. Once that happens, the lenders and creditors will own the company, and they will determine how the company operates. I am of the opinion that Cumulus is selling these unprofitable stations now because the company's new owners want them to shed all unprofitable operations. Three key words when you're dealing with creditors: No emotional attachment.
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