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Old April 20th 04, 04:14 PM
Scott McCollum
 
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Rich Wood wrote in message ...
On 19 Apr 2004 05:22:57 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

1) How much would a talk radio station not owned by Infinity or
Disney/ABC in a Top 10 market pay for a contract with Disney to
broadcast ABC News at the top of the hour? How much would that station
pay Westwood One for CBS News briefs? (I know stations like WABC in
NYC and WBAP in Dallas that are *owned* by Disney/ABC obviously have
different contracts for radio news than say, a Cox or Clear
Channel-owned station in Atlanta or Chicago.)


If you're a highly rated station in a major market, they may pay you.
They'll compensate you for the spots they require you to run. A
network spot brings a fraction of what a locally sold spot brings. In
one case you have to be very careful. If you don't meet a required
clearance precentage, you get no compensation at all.

In major markets every contract is different because of the
compensation terms. At WOR we were an ABC Entertainment affiliate but
didn't run the hourly newscasts. We had our own news department, but
used their actualities and wall-to-wall coverage when necessary. We
ran all their spots. Evenings and overnight we ran Mutual hourlys.

When I was at ABC we watched stations very carefully to make sure they
weren't running the network spots in low rated time periods. If we
found you were running our spots overnight your risked losing your
affiliation.

In other markets it's generally barter. You run a certain number of
spots per week for use of the programming.


Since I don't work in radio professionally and I'm just learning about
this business, I'd like to get this correct by repeating what I've
just learned in this forum using the simplest terms:

1. Major market radio stations that are *NOT* owned by a network but
are affiliates don't have to pay for ABC Radio News, any of the
Westwood One news offerings (CBS to CNN), Salem Radio News, or any
other top of the hour news content providers.

2. Smaller markets do not pay for the news either, but rather "barter"
for the content by broadcasting the news content from a provider a
certain number of times during a specified weekly schedule.

If these two statements are basically accurate, I would like to know
how news content providers make money. It almost sounds like radio
stations don't pay for these news briefs at all (almost like a public
service).

My expectation was that a radio station would have contracts to pay
ABC News a fee (that was determined by number of listeners,
demographics, etc.) for broadcasting their news briefs. It sounds like
it's much more complex than that and I'd like to understand why.

2) How long do these contracts last with Westwood One or Disney/ABC?


Every contract varies.

For example, the Seattle market has two major commercial talk
stations: KVI and KTTH. KVI acquires their news from Fox News Radio
and caters to a politically conservative audience.


Surely you're joking. We all know that FOX is "fair and balanced" so
it's a cruel accusation to say they're conservative. Roger Ailes will
sue you or get very upset.

The PD for KTTH has publicly stated that they will use
"ABC News for the foreseeable future" but didn't give any indication
as to the length of their contract with Disney/ABC.


What's his alternative? There can't be two "fair and balanced"
stations in the same market. He'll have to figure a way to take FOX
away from KVI.

Rich


I don't care about the politics; I want to understand the business
thinking in the radio industry:

--Two big radio stations in a top market are vying for a similar
audience.
--Each station wants to differentiate itself by offering their large
target audience content it wants.
--One station is losing business because it's audience does not derive
value from "Content X" while the other station with "Content A" is
gaining business.
--The station with "Content X" wouldn't win over listeners with
"Content Y," "Content Z," or any of the similar offerings.
--Nothing can be gained by having two stations in one market with
"Content A" but why wouldn't the losing station switch from "Content
X" to "Content B" (especially since "Content B" isn't the same as
"Content A" but more closely tracks with what their audience values)?

If a radio station received constant complaints about the network
content and it was driving listeners to another station, why would the
station want to keep its affiliation with a content provider that
everyone hates? Some would say the network pays them too much to *not*
change but wouldn't it hurt the station's bottom line to stay
affliated with a network everyone in town despised?

Thanks for all the information - it's been very helpful.