David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:

See, I disagree with that. While I hear your objections, and have
heard them before, often at the top of someone's lungs, I've been
personally involved in too many meetings where we did, as a radio station,
sell directly to an agency, and we did change the parameters of a buy. I"m
not saying its easy, but it IS possible. And it does bear fruit...both for
the end client and the station, which means it also bears fruit for the
agency.

The cunundrum or Catch 22 is that any station that tries to program for
older demos starts off with no advertising opportunities except local direct
and a few local agencies that are willing to look for some different
solutions. The agency business that makes or breaks stations in larger
metros will, if anything is possible, take years to work on.


I think you're missing what I'm suggesting....I don't think you
want to overhaul your programming to target older demos. But I do think
it would be wise to include them. For a music station, that wouldn't be
much more than a few carefully selected songs, and a delivery that
acknowledges the listeners with some miles on them. For talk, it may be
no more than simply taking a few mature calls.

When Michael Packer was programmer of WLS, a memo went out that
there were to be no callers who didn't sound under 35. Well,
c'mon...you're talking political content, local controversy and Chicago
related issues, you're going to have people over 35 listening. Still,
they weeded out the calls. A copy of the memo hit Feder's desk at the
Sun-Times and the fit hit the shan. Now it was a public matter, and
there was no end to the reaction.

Now, I know what he was going for. But the fact remains that
there is a segment of the audience, a sizable segment, at that, that was
simply excluded from participation. All it would have taken is a few
calls from older demos. Nothing dramatic. But a good call is a good
call, if it happens to be from an older listener, without changing the
content of the conversation...why make the exclusion if you don't have to.

When Kipper took over, things changed. There is a balance
again. And I'm sure there's a proportion of demographic representation
on the calls, but there's clearly no hard cut-off, and upper demos are
served.

When LeeAnn Lewis was GM of KMBQ, she mandated that no disk
jockeys put callers on the air younger than 25. That didn't, ultimately,
serve, her, either. One of the hottest things for a parent to do was to
put their kid on the phone to the radio station. Getting their kid on
the air was a high for them. Cutting that off, also cut off a lot of
response from their target demo, 25-49, because that's where the young
parents were. The station fell, rapidly, from grace.

Serving out-of-target demos need not be something that requires
dramatic, or even significant program content changes. A little fringe
attention. Widening the niche, as it were. Sometimes, acknowledgement is
all it takes.

Older demos, especially, don't suddenly start listening to
Tommy Dorsey (one of my all time favorites, btw) just because they hit
middle age. And they don't get locked into The Grateful Dead just
because they lived through the Dead's heyday. Older demos are like
everyone else, just more experienced. They still sample new music. They
still see new movies. They still laugh at contemporary commentary. Not
acknowledging that is shortsighted in the extreme.

My G/F and I listen to Tommy Dorsey in the car. Along with
Pink Floyd, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Psapp, Rilo Kiley and dozens
of others. I also listen to Classical, and traditional jazz. She also
enjoys standards redone by Robert Downey, light classics and today's hot
hits. So the iPods get quite the eclectic workout. We both get today's
humor. We both follow today's street. We're both politically active.

And we both spend discretionary income on products advertised
by local radio stations. Stations that prefer to ignore us.

Similarly, my friends and colleagues have not stopped living
because we hit 55.

And to service us at Radio takes so little. And requires no
significant change in content. Just because we hit 55 doesn't mean we
overhaul our tastes, start carrying mothballs, or dress like Aunt Pat's
couch.

Presenting that to your stations should be simple. Presenting
it to your advertisers might even be unnecessary.


I understand that agencies are too important to get their hands dirty
with Radio. They're agencies. Radio is...well, the home of disk
jockeys...and perceptually, that's not a positive.

The big reason is that agencies make money on creative and that means print
and TV production, not on radio spots. In addition, radio is costly to buy
and that means that a buying service is often employed... and that is where
no changes in media specs ever happen.


Again, even in that scenario, I've done work that directly
contravenes this station. I"ve seen it done every day. Even with big
agencies, even with media buying services.



One of the many reasons that agencies do the things they do is to throw up
walls between themselves and media so that the agency can call the shots.
And they're notoriously intractable. And they don't care about anybody's
rules. At the Chicago Addy's Leo Burnett used to submit their national
McDonald's spots in the local station promo category, where they clearly
did not belong. The swept the category.

But you are addressing creative. The creative is a joint deal with the
client, where the agency does have considerable leeway.
The demos, though, come from the client in most cases. Or are worked out
with the agency as part of designing the campaign.


In which case, the agency would have influence, and you would
have, through the agency depending on your salesmanship, relationship,
or choice of drinking buddies, influence, as well. Some of the most
important changes in media buys, when I was with Cook Inlet, took place
during the prayer meetings in the Chapel at the bottom of the Hancock.
Two or three sacraments is all it took to get the ecumenicals started.
You had the Sales and General Mangler from the station, you had reps
from two or three agencies, and you had a LOT of tequila. Seeds were
planted (in more ways than would be polite to mention here) and things
got changed.

It happens every day.



We got on their buys. Through ups and downs, through manglement
changes, PD changes, music changes, and severe ratings slumps. And we
stayed on the buy.

In this case, you were close enough to effect format acceptance. Try that
with demos, though.

We did. And we expanded buys targeted below 34 to include up to
55.

We did it all the time. And we commanded premium rates for it
to boot.


When the station hit #1, it was converting at 200%+ Sometimes
dramatically higher than that. And almost always including demos NOT
requested by the agencies.

As long as you had enough in demo numbers to justify the buy, the agency is
happy. Agencies routinely buy news / talk, but they get a price that is only
for the 25-54 component, and meets the CPP goals. It does not matter that
there may be more 55+... they just want to come in at a price they set for
the demo.

Sometimes true, sometimes, not so. But we always converted
high, and we always got them to buy demos that they specifically hadn't
considered. Salesmanship, and relationships. They go a long way toward
changing things.


I was the ONLY one who had ever been in the store. And when I talked to
Gary Benson, who was building the franchise, I was the only one who
understand what it was he was trying to build. Because I'd been there. And
all the figures, all the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on demos,
including having the London Symphony record a jingle, meant nothing. I'd
demonstrated that I could produce the result he was looking for.

That was a fortunate and unusual occurance. Most agency business comes from
out of town agencies, visited by the station reps. occasionally, the station
GSM or GM will go on calls in each market, but generally they meet with the
media director at the highest level. The media director has very little demo
changing power.



It was definitely a rare event, to be sure. And I don't know
that it's happened since. But more than a personal victory, it was quite
the object lesson that you don't just accept what you're handed. There
are always new ways of solving seemingly insurmountable problems that
achieve the desired goals based on old fashioned results.

I know it may be a surprise, to you, but I'm not the kind of
guy who 'fits-in.' I"m not a joiner. And my social circle is very small.
Most of the time, people at work just ignored me. Even the GM forgot I
was there sometimes. But when it came to getting something done that
'couldn't be done,' I was the first one they called. And the given
credit for the win...but that's another story. The reason I lasted so
long through so many PD's, so may GM's and so many sales manglers, is
because I saw solutions that traditional thinking didn't recognize. But
the results produced were traditional results. Usually a bit over the top.

So, what I'm saying is not to abandon your thinking, or abandon
your targets, goals and strategies, but rather, just to expand the
niche, a bit, to include more creative strategies at attacking issues
that are supposed to be unassailable. Create new avenues to include a
wider base of listeners, and a wider target for advertisers. Don't just
take the numbers you're handed and go away. Create a strategy for
getting those numbers, and widening them. Line your pockets with the
extra cash.

There was a movie with Robert Preston,...late 50's, may have
been Kraft Television Theatre, but don't quote me...Preston was a buggy
whip salesman and the automobile had just been invented. With
predictable results for his company. He tried to find new work, but
there was none. Young turks had captured the sales market, and he was a
dinosaur. More importantly, he was associated all over his circuit with
obsolete buggy whips.

In one memorable scene, he was pitching himself to a young
sales mangler who just turned him down flat as too old, too obsolete,
too irrelevant. In a moment of pique, his frustration led him to one of
the most important soliloquies in modern times....in which, and again,
don't quote me, he said these words, among others, "Have you ever in a
farmer's field, helping him to pull a heifer out of a calf that was too
young to have it? Have you ever gotten down knee deep in mud to help him
fix a broke plowshare? Sales isn't about numbers, figures and reports,
it's about relationships....because what you're really selling is
yourself."

It went on for about 2 minutes...but you get the idea. Well,
the young turk doing the hiring, said, "I disagree."

But the speech had gathered the attention of office staff,
including the young turk's father, who said, "I don't." And Preston was
hired into the new business as a salesman.

The rest of the story wasn't so happy. But that moment, that
exchange made quite a point, and that is: Sales is not about your
product. PURCHASE is about your product. SALES is about selling yourself.

That moment also made quite the point that sometimes, being
respectful of the business decorum is precisely the most ineffective
thing to do.

Now, this movie is fiction. It's based on real experiences,
but it's fiction. But it does demonstrate a concept that's all to often
forgotten in today's business climate, where the only things that matter
are numbers, spreadsheets, and research. And that concept is that,
before you get to the money, the numbers, the profits, business is about
the relationship. You have to have one to do business.

And that's true of any business. Of any sales position. Of any
Mangler's position. Even the guy behind the microphone at the radio
station. You have to establish a relationship. You can do it as a matter
of numbers, spreadsheets and research, or you can do some real
selling....selling yourself. Your station, your station's
personality...you can cultivate a real relationship with your listeners,
and your clients.

And in that context, widening the niche becomes not only
possible, but necessary. And the benefits are long term. Because, once
you've sold yourself, you've created a recession resistant relationship
that will weather downturns. Ratings, market forces, economy. And
you'll weather it through the loyalty built by providing results, and
solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems to your clients.

But more importantly, you can now create changes in thinking,
and you can do it from every source. Media directors, producers,
writers, sales, representatives, all can be parts of solutions, instead
of automatons living and dying by scenarios handed to them by third and
fourth party number crunchers.

If you can do this, you create a win-win-win-win. Everyone gets
served from listeners to the station, the agency, and the client. And
above all, you.

Rather than living and dying by numbers over which you have no
control, you can live and die by your own knowledge and experience, and
use those numbers as tools, not lifelines.


In a similar, and related, context, if a spot isn't producing results
with 55+, change the pitch. You CAN sell to higher demos. And I understand
that lower demos are easier, and less costly to assault. But the higher
demos have more ready cash, and they do spend it. Convincing them may
require a different effort. May require more of it....but if once you
break through, you've tapped into a gold mine. Getting over that hump may
require more effort, but once tapped, that reserve of cash comes with new
loyalties, and new willingness to do business.

Again, agency accounts (the clients) have done cost of sale evaluations and
the main reason they don't buy is the conversion cost. THis is why 18-34 is
so important. This is why our group is so excited about being the number one
TV net 18-34 in the last Nielsens... that is where the money is... where
brand preferences are formed.

See above.


I understand exactly what you're saying. But my own experience,
again, says that there are ways of getting beyond that wall. Sometimes
it's a matter of building a relationship with someone at the rep firm.
Sometimes, it's a matter of something so absurd that it gets attention.

Absurd works. Years ago, a major textile company had a sign in the
President's office: "It it's about advertising, I am not in." I went to a
hardware store and bought one of those mini doors that lock companies use to
show off knobs and locks. I had "what does it take to open your door" and
our group logo stenciled on it, and sent it by messenger. The next day, I
got a call, an appointment and a sale.

The real issue is that access to clients is dangerous... many agencies view
it as betrayal, and it costs you. And so many clients are in cities you can
not afford to travel to all the time.


That's why the relationship is SO important. With the correct
relationship, you access clients with willing assistance of the agency.
Because you've sold the agency on the benefits of your creative solutions.

It happens every day.


Once again, research is a snapshot of conditions as they exist
pertinent to an array of assumptions. Assumptions that are scientifically
arrived at, perhaps, but assumptions nonetheless. And assumptions take on
an axiomatic inviolability that is accepted as law within the context of
research. However, these assumptions are based on an average of
characteristics applied to individuals, and narrowed statistically,
ignoring wider, and broader variations in human behaviour, tastes,
beliefs, politics and understanding...and a hundred others.

Research today is often based on actual observance of families, in the home,
like reality shows. Qustions are asked at the end about why certain things
were done, such as purchases, menu decisions, etc. It is very in depth and
very expensive. But when companies combine this data with sales data, they
spot the correlations and that is how they develop marketing plans for many
consumer products.


Correlations between snapshots based on limited observation
and assumptions that serve the correlations. Often they're accurate and
can infer motivations. But they cannot actually determin what motivates
a buyer.

Correlation is not causality. And it's causality that drives
action. Getting buyers, listeners, or investors to take action requires
that you trigger motivations. Correlation cannot determine that.

If you want younger people to move to AM to give a realistic
valid sampling of HD, you have to determine what's REALLY keeping them
from it. Correlation only says that they should, or they may. Causality
says they'll be motivated to.

Big difference. Arrived at differently than correlation.




It's a pretty specific and scientifically arrived at snapshot. But
it's only a snapshot. And like photographs in Life, it's only a picture of
a moment. A product of a myriad of influences that are not seen, and are
not measured in favor of the more easily arrived at characteristics.

The in-homes overcome most of these objections.

I don't believe that. I've seen too many times it didn't.



Take an example. AM talk formats experience a younger demo
ratings spike after moving to FM. The assumption is that they're listening
now because of the improved audio quality. Which may be true. Which is
likely true. But it's not the only reason.

The new format may be where there was an older, less successful
station, but with some credible ratings. Suddenly there's a new station
there.

In most cases we are looking at, it's the same station moved to FM... like
KTAR in Phoenix or the KSL situation in SLC or WTOP in DC... or small
markets like WNLS in Talahassee. First book, the 35-54 show up. Neever had
them before, and then they stay. No format change, no competitive influence.
FM is acceptable, FM sounds better. AM does not meet those criteria.

You missed my point...taking an AM station to FM puts that
content before listeners who have never listened, in a place where there
was another station before. It's a new station to the listeners. May be
the same format, same content, same station, but it's still new to
listeners who never listened to AM. So, yes, new listeners come and
they stay. Because, 1) there's a new station, on the band where they're
already listening, 2) they like the content.

Content drives listening, and no change in audio quality
alone will change the listening habits of a listener if they don't like
the content.

AND, you've hit the nail on the head. FM is acceptable.
Yes, it does sound better. But that's not the entire issue of
acceptability. We're into our second generation of listeners who for
whom Radio IS FM. AM is not acceptable because 'nobody listens,' 'my mom
listens to....' and other reasons I don't need to repeat. The issue is
exactly acceptability. Sound is a part of that. But it's not a
motivator. If it were, every Walkman would be AM Stereo, FM Dolby and
Quad with FMX.

They aren't. Because audio isn't the issue. It's not the
audio, it's perception of unacceptability.

If you want younger demos to talk radio, move it to FM. That
works. But AM HD won't get you there, because they simply will not give
band or anything on it a fair sample.

And especially not with all the interstation hash.

You talk about being Oldsmobiled? Who listens to AM? The same
people who didn't buy an Alero, even though it was a cleaner, more stylsh
line, with better performance and more comprehensive features.

But it was an Olds. The brand had an image of being "the last car you will
ever buy." It was one step away from a hearse. But the Olds was a good car,
as good as many American cars.

Excuse me there was a typo, there....it should have read,
who doesn't listen to AM? the same people who didn't buy an Alero, even
though it was a cleaner more stylish line, with better performance and
more comprehensive features.

It was an Olds. Not interested.


AM sounds crappy, and did way before NRSC and
such. Whether we blame the receiver manufacturers or the change to FM does
not matter. When the same listeners like the same programming on FM, but
shun it on AM, it means the band is old, decrepit and it sounds bad.


No, it means that the band is old, decrepit and sounds bad,
but they shun it because it's not FM. Changing the audio will not
change the perception that AM is not FM. They're not listening to AM
because it's AM...they're not even getting to the audio quality. Because
they're not sampling it. And they won't. It's a foregone conclusion that
AM is undesirable. Most importantly, like Oldsmobile, because it's a
link to age. Changing the audio won't change that perception.


Research infers that younger demos will listen to AM if the audio
were clearer. Perhaps. But will they sample it? Honestly sample it?
Probably not. "Why" is individually determined, and out of the reach of
the research snapshot. But the ones who will not listen to AM now, will
not listen, simply because you improve the audio (debatable given IBOC
performance I've experienced). It's their father's radio. It's unhip. It's
bad sound. Whatever the reason, there's nothing that will get them to
sample AM.

This is the hope of some that promote HD for AM. It is a last-ditch
effort.... I encourage it, because all HD radios will have AM as well and
there is a chance that some decent signal AMs may slow down the erosion.
The point is not about income, etc. The point is that to create a change
in brand preference costs too much and makes the sale undesirable.

Actually, 55+ includes, mostly, retired people. And that is where you see
the scary figures on how many people live only on social security, and about
a million have moved to Mexico because they can not afford to live in the
US. Look at income figures overall for 55+ and only a small percentage have
any significant savings. And most have very little discretionary income.

And it's also where you see the retirees driving
Escalades. Business owners vacationing in Italy. Executives spending
$12,000 on a watch. It's where you seed big screen plasmas in three or
four rooms of a 9000 sq ft home. It's where you see airline pilots
living in $450,000 condos in the city. It's where you see airline
stewardesses living across the hall from them.

There are scary lower income listeners in the lower demos,
too. Welfare moms who can't afford heat in the winter, young couples
with just enough income to pay the rent, but live on Ramen and Wal-mart
bread. C'mon David, you're smarter than this.



Radio stations pitch clients every day. Every day. That's what
the Sales staff is for. If a station ONLY accepts agency buys, you
telling me you have no Sales staff.

Direct sellers pitch the client. But most direct money is at lower rastes
and with higher maintenance. Agency accounts are serviced more than they are
sold. But the money is worth it.

I had three sellers for the top billing station in market #13. We tried
direct sales, but we got mostly no pay and slow pay and low rates. The
clients with money went to agencies. We led the market in revenues and power
ratio, because we did not spend on lost causes.



No one is saying it's easy. But it's about the
relationship, and picking your direct client carefully.



There is no money in 55+. No single radio station, and no group can
change a client's attitude if the client is going to say, "I can not get
a decent ROI on that demo" or "my product was designed for 18-34 year
olds and I hope we don't get Oldsmobiled."


No one is saying to change the niche. Only widening the
niche. Inclusion rather than exclusion. It's all about relationships.




Stan Freberg demonstrated three decades ago that you can sell
anything on radio. It's the most visual of electronic media.

I think that is true Urban Legend.


Call the RAB, they'll dig up a copy of the spots for
you. They were highly visual.

Appetite appeal is so critical to come
campaigns that radio, if use, supports recall at POP, not sales.


No question. But that's not the only application of
radio. And again, widenening the niche. Widening the thinking.

And building relationships. It's not impossible.


Mel Karmazin said, and repeatedly, I might add, that revenues
are commonly linked to ratings. They're not. A station can always
outperform it's ratings. Always. And it does so through high expectations,
and retaining control of it's inventory, And by believing in possibilities
instead of obstacles.

Stations that outperform give a specific desirable demo with little
spillage, like all sports. They get the power ratios that are close to 1:1.
CHR gets 0.7 or 0.8 to one because advertisers don't want the teens. And so
on.



That's not what he was saying. What Karmazin was saying
was that revenue is dependent on demand for your product. Ratings can be
related to that, but not necessarily. If you want to create demand,
field more sales people. Let them compete with each other to get
sponsors on the air. Use a sliding rate card. Drive up the rates.
Waiting for orders to come in based on ratings is one way to do it. But
you live by the book you die by the book. Creating demand on your own
produces results that are recession and ratings proof. WUSN, Chicago
remained sold out even after a 50% slide in ratings when Country Music
slid off the grid. And they held their rates. WDZ, Decatur had fewer
listeners than the police radios, and was sold out. At top market rates.
KWKH, Shreveport didn't show up in the book for years, and held top
market rates, and was sold out 10 months out of the year.

Ratings are one thing. Effective sales are another.


Again, perceptions. If you accept them, they become what you
believe to be realities. They do not become realities themselves. If
you're not succeeding at selling this, then change you pitch.

I am pretty sure that in 15 years, WDUV has tried every technique
immaginable. None have worked so far.

The only failure is quitting the attempt.