On 20 Apr 2004 15:14:06 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

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.

It's very complex. Barter networks take a number of commercial minutes
each week from the station's inventory, collect all the audience
figures and sell the results to advertisers. When they keep a handle
on where those commercials run, they make a very healthy living.

There's a story that when Grant Tinker came to run NBC he was given a
tour and asked his guide how much the stations paid NBC to run their
programming. When the respectful laughter died down, Mr. Tinker was
told the network paid the stations to run the stuff.

It's known as Comp. (compensation).

Many small market stations can't afford to pay cash for programming,
so they give up some of their commercial inventory and run the
network's commercials. In Talk Radio that can be as much as 50% of the
available inventory in each hour of a show.

There are almost as many configurations as there are stations and it's
a nightmare to administrate.

Rich