D Peter Maus wrote:

[...]
So, yeah, even then, credit is local. What happens on WWCR, the way
advertising is sold , is different than the way advertising is sold on
the broadcast bands. WWCR would be selling PI's and the station would
receive a commission on every contact made to the advertiser's telephone
number. Or the numbers in a spot buy would be estimated, like the early
days of cable tv. There the sales were based on estimated households
connected to cable that may be accessible to the
program/channel/timeslot purchased. But actual viewership could be zero.
WWCR would be selling the total population within their coverage area,
and that figure broken down by demographics, or potential listenership
figures estimated by what may actually be an arbitrary yardstick. Since
no one knows how many are actually listening, such estimates are based
on assumptions that have not been relevant for decades. It's not
impossible for AMBCB to sell this way. But in today's over researched
markets, no agency would make such a purchase. And no station would
attempt to sell it, because no factual ratings information would be
available. In that case, the only reasonable choice would be a PI. Many
stations don't accept PI's anymore. Mostly because of the snake oil
salesmen who sell them, and the fact that they tend to produce marginal
results at best. Mostly, they're a waste of time.




But what I missed apparently is how the market is determined, which
according to you is only the local population in the strong signal area
combined with a market share number so the number of people listening to
the commercial can be determined. I guess you cannot have the marketing
department making a million long distance calls to figure out how many
people are listening to a distant signal. I guess relying on the people
buying the advertising on the station giving the station their sales
figures would be out of the question and so AMBCB stations rely on an
independent market share survey method.


Phone out research is a common practice. It's not cheap, but many
stations do it. What they don't do is make long distance calls to do it.
It's expensive, and the return is statistacally zero. Ratings companies
like Arbitron and Nielsen measure listening habits by station, time of
day, time spent listening, and break the numbers down by demographics,
with hour by hour breakouts. If the sample is accurate, the numbers tell
quite a story. And sales then sells advertising based on the rating,
share, TSL, and what the market will bear. When Karmazin was at CBS, he
wanted to see a conversion rate of 200%, that is, sales producing
revenue share of twice ratings share. The station I was at, we often
went higher than that. Agencies want to buy cost per point. A dollar
figure for each share point in target.

Where the diaries go is determined by zipcode, ethnic distribution,
economic status, hat size and price of recycled lawn furniture within
the Area of Dominant Influence.

ADI is deterimined by geographic size of the potential market,
population distribution, and signal strength of the station in question.

Now there are multiple factors that are involved in each of these
considerations...I'm only hitting highlights here.

So advertising is targeted by desired demographic, within the Area of
Dominant Influence and which stations deliver the desired bodies at the
best cost. When advertising is sold like this, and bought on a cost per
point basis, there is no value to the station or the advertiser to the
DX signal. If it stops at the end of fringe coverage, they could care less.

Which gets us back to the whole issue of this thread: IBOC and it's
effect on what is left of the DXing hobby.

No one cares. DXers are not statistically relevant to the business
of broadcasting. They produce no revenue. They amount to no demographic
group. They cannot be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
de-briefed or numbered.

They're like Dr Pepper drinkers...they defy marketing science.


So that IBOC creates interference to DXing is of no consequence to
anyone who has a financial interest in a broadcast station. And, like it
or not....and make no mistake, I do NOT like it, and am NOT a fan of
IBOC or where Broadcasting as an industry has gone in the last 15 years,
but it is what it is.....Radio in the United States is always, and has
always been, about money. Even NPR and CPB. It's always about the money.

So, to get back to my original point...if you're going to fight
IBOC, it must be done on the grounds of LOCAL interference. Because
LOCAL interference affects LOCAL revenue. And it's always about the
money. Always.



p

I wonder how this fits with the business models of the old REGIONAL
powerhouses of the 70s such as CKLW and WABC. WABC always
acknowledged their long distance listeners who called in, and CKLW
certainly was NOT targeting only Windsor, ON.


--
Eric F. Richards

"Nature abhors a vacuum tube." -- Myron Glass,
often attributed to J. R. Pierce, Bell Labs, c. 1940