Lee, you were right about my radio group not being one of the big ones. It
was owned by a local businessman who had other business interests but no
other stations.

The owner's philosophy was similar to that of Clear Channel, To him, it was
all about the bottom line, no matter what.

When I went to work for him, he owned the top station in the area. Then he
bought the competitor. And then he started dismantling both. He let all the
high-paid jocks go, automated the stations and hired minimum-wage baby
sitters to watch the computer and throw in occasional weather and liners.

Obviously sales dropped, but since expenses dropped even more, then he
remains happy. I got out on the way down, and I'm so thankful to be gone!

I'm guessing that one of the first things this guy got rid of was the
copywriter, if there was one. Why not let the sales people write the copy.
Here's why. Even the relatively few competent sales people are not
necessarily competent copywriters. And the cluless ones are, well, cluless.
One reason that advertising sales evaporate is lack of results. And
pointless, boring, clumsy ad copy does not produce results for the adverser.

If you are listening to a radio station and you hear "for all your
(advertiser's product) needs," "(holiday or event) is upon us," "save, save,
save," or just a mindless husband/wife or boss/secretary conversation
crammed with stilted (client's business) jargon, you can be pretty sure that
the commercial was written by the account exec or, worse, the client.
Besides being generally ineffective advertising, the hours a salesperson
spends agonizing over crappy copy add up to time not spent doing his/her
real job: selling advertising.

Lee


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