Re: [IRCA] KDWN ratings

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen Hawkins wrote:

> I have had some huge email discussions with station programers about what 
> advertisers buy.   Is there a way to find out what agencies are certain 
> station sells a lot of it time to?  KIOA for instance.  If anyone knows I 
> would appreciate any advice or info you might have access to.

Without having access to the station's own sales records, there's really 
no good way to figure out which agencies are doing the buying.

About the best you can do by listening is to get a sense of the 
breakdown between local ("retail") sales and national agency buys.

In general, the only way you get national agency buys is if you have 
strong 25-54 numbers. They buy in enough markets, and in enough bulk, 
that they generally base those buys pretty much entirely on the numbers. 
If you don't show up well in the book, you don't get the buy.

Many smaller stations have much better success selling locally, without 
recourse to the ratings. My local WYSL 1040, for instance, barely 
registers in the Arbitrons - but they have a local sales force that's 
good at telling the station's story to local advertisers, who see that 
they get results from their buys, so they keep buying and WYSL keeps 
doing well.

That said - many, if not all, of the national ads you hear on smaller 
stations like WYSL don't come from national agency buys. They're network 
spots that are played as part of the contract with the network. (At WBZ, 
for instance, we were an ABC Information Network affiliate, and while we 
didn't take the ABC top-hour newscasts outside of the overnight hours, 
we still had to play the spot load from those newscasts during the day.)

Bottom line - if the salespeople (or a friendly mole at a local ad 
agency) won't tell you, odds are you're not going to find out for sure.

s
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