It's really very easy to maintain a limited spot load -- when you
sell out, you raise your rates to the point where you're not quite
sold out...and keep doing that, over and over.

Wow, someone else finally figured this out. Good for you. People I would explain
this simple logic to, would be too afraid to try it because they never want to lose any
advertiser and would rather have lots of advertisers and spots and low pay, than a few
advertisers paying a lot more.

Problem is, if you are programming ****, you can only charge $5 a spot.

FIRST you get good programming. THEN you have a small sales staff of 3 or 4 people to
handle incoming calls from Budweiser, McDonalds, etc. If you have to go out and get
advertisers, then your programming sucks.

This has the added
benefit of driving marginal businesses and slow-paying accounts off
your station and onto your cheaper competition. Salespeople make more
money with less work. Everybody wins. Once upon a time most
successful stations did this. Yes, you have to cut rates in slack
periods, but if managed correctly the overall trend is always up.

Finally someone here that talks some sense.