You may recall our story with Ed Levine last week (“An Argument For More Deregulation”) where he detailed how his company is no longer fighting for advertising dollars with the newspaper, other radio stations, and a TV station in the market. He detailed how the unregulated world of digital (i.e. Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) are gobbling up ad dollars while radio continues to find itself handcuffed by FCC rules put in place back in the ’70s. We found another example for you thanks to BIA/Kelsey’s Mark Fratrik.
Fratrik made a presentation at Radio Ink’s Hispanic Radio Conference this week that included detailed research from the Washington, DC, market, where Hubbard’s WTOP was once again crowned radio’s billing champion. Fratrik drilled down the data to the local ad revenue level, where BIA/Kelsey says Hubbard took in $67.5 (The Hubbard number in the chart below is incorrect) in 2016.
And to help prove Ed Levine’s point, Facebook in Washington, DC, took in $51.5 million in local advertising revenue in 2016. Are you sitting down? It gets better. On top of the list was, you guessed it, Google. The online search company took in over $244 million in advertising dollars in 2016, nearly doubling the company second on the list (The Washington Post). See the chart below.
Perhaps Ed Levine has a point. Chairman Pai…are you listening?
Yeah, deregulation is been great so far. All these corporations gobbling up stations and basically driving salaries down, rates down, and stripping everything that once made radio great out of the mix.
How far in debt is I heart? How far in debt is cumulus? How hard is CBS trying to show a profit?. Yeah, letting fewer players buy more stations will certainly be the answer. :rolleyes:
The truth is, all these radio companies and supposedly brilliant radio people have no idea what the hell they are doing in a digital age.
The four word answer for generating more revenue from our advertisers is simple. Use radio’s first preeminent strength in leading all media in catalyzing pre-need purchase thinking; with our ability to interrupt and engage consumer consciousness and lead them to action.
We don’t need to focus on the “b.s. baffles brains” games of ratings and metrics. The four word answer for radio’s advertisers and prospects wanting to spend dollars to get more customers?: Show them the money.
It’s all about the Benjamins. Radio has the tools to both catalyze and generate 52 weeks of documented advertiser sales results directly attributable to radio. When we show these local advertiser sales results to other local advertisers, when we show these national advertiser sales results to other national advertisers, these are the numbers that lead to more radio revenue, which leaves Google, Facebook and any competitor lacking.
As this approach generates more premium rate revenue per hour of prospecting, pitching, closing and servicing, why aren’t more radio people doing it?