Ben Downs is responsible for 10 stations in Texas for Bryan Broadcasting, where he’s been for 26 years as Vice President and General Manager. When we asked Downs, as part of our Independent Warrior Special Report, what he’d like to see radio doing better, he said radio has three problems that would improve how the world sees the industry. He details them all here but says none of them are easy to fix.
First: We have problem spots; literally.
Talk stations are still running close to 22 minutes of commercials per hour including local, network, adjacencies, and news/weather/traffic breaks. Syndicated talk shows should re-evaluate the need for all those local breaks especially in the overnight programs. I’m guessing that a lot of inventory after 7 p.m. is just inventory for the AdCouncil.
And with all those commercials running, some aren’t very good. Nationally, we deal with hyper-drive delivered disclaimers of questionable legal value. Locally we take “the customer is always right” to mean we would put rat poison on a pizza if they asked for it. We should tell advertisers that commercials with empty phrases, telephone numbers, and copy that is good “for all your advertising needs” doesn’t fill their real need for effective selling.
Second: We’ve given up quality control. We catch wrong commercials only after they run. The engineer gets called after a listener notices the audio fails. A remote has to be done via cell phone when talent forgets a microphone. Our mistakes are on display for our listeners and advertisers to see every time. Either by training, checklists, or better systems, we need to be proactive in cleaning up our product and keeping it that way.
And Third: We need to integrate our new media products into every broadcast presentation, but everyone else will write about that. So, I’ll just say “ditto.”
Reach out to Ben Downs at [email protected]
And here’s more from our Independent Warriors:
Read what Ron Stone said HERE
Read what Trila Bumstead said HERE
Read what Bruce Mittman said HERE
Read what Jim Leven said HERE
Even decades ago, the cynical “suits” (that’s how they got their name) were selling ads as if they were thugs demanding “protection” money.
They were the first to tell those of us who were in programming who the big dogs were – and they weren’t us.
They were always busy developing new business because the older clients were dropping like flies – unimpressed with results on their piddlly, little two week blasts and the demanding, direct response ads that were the only option to approach their target audiences.
Granted, there were too few spot-cobblers available to continuously generate “creative” ads. So, the widget approach had to suffice, as it does today – only more so.
The irony is in that “salesguy” – being typical of the genre – has no appreciation that better spots represent better results for advertisers and better, more profitable products for the big dogs to take to the street.
Knowing how to generate more influential direct response ads is the first step. “Creative” comes later.
Ben – well said. Getting the buy is a temporary thing … getting results is what will keep us in business. When results don’t matter, we don’t matter. Imagine being spot # 22 on the N/T station? Nobody is going to hear it.
To salesguy … how’s that working for Newspaper? They are as stuck in the “olden days” like we were when the Herb Tarlek’s did whatever to get the buy … results be damned. As for ads that inform: people have the attention span of a nat today. They do not want to be informed (ask them!): they want to be entertained.
Well, Bob,
First of all, you must mean “gnat.”
Second..lotta pure speculation in your assertions. People don’t want to be informed?
Is that why we have several all news cable networks? Is that why Republican debates ratings are off the wall? You’d better walk that back a bit.
Advertisers will tell you that price/item ads have always worked the best for nearly everything. They contain the information necessary to make a buying decision, an area that needs more study from you, obviously.
Newspapers have been in decline for about 40 years. A very slow decline, because they were smart enough to keep raising their column-inch rates, regardless, something completely contrary to the way radio people think (smaller audience-higher rates.) I never said that the printed newspaper model was for us.
I merely said that the advertising volume contained within never deterred readership, in fact, it likely increased it (see Sunday edition).
You and others like you really need to study advertising, very soon, I hope.
I wouldn’t care to work for a company that complained about the amount of business that I wrote. Isn’t it funny that only radio people worry about the hand that feeds them. Newspapers run all the ads they want, in fact, the Sunday paper with the highest of all ad content is the most prized of all. And many of these print ads are far from “award winning” in the eyes of the reader. They simply inform, as they should. For some reason, a few radio-types think that the ads should be entertaining-to them, as if the advertising must past a “creative filter” instead of work for the business who pays for it.
I would suggest that Mr. Downs work on his primary purpose-keeping his company profitable-and not be concerned with “how the world views us.” The world is rather fond of us, as all current data clearly points out.