Earlier this week it was announced that Marketron, the software company used by thousands of radio stations was sold to private equity firm Diversis Capital. The company named Michael Collins (pictured) as its new CEO, replacing Jeff Haley. What does the sale mean for your station if you use any of Marketron’s products? Let’s find out from the new CEO.
Radio Ink: What should the radio industry know about Michael Collins?
Michael Collins: My entire career has focused on bringing technology to media companies to help them grow. That experience, along with the great team that is already in place at Marketron, should enable us to expand our leadership position.
Like any CEO, my number goal one is, of course, provide increasing value to the shareholders. More specifically to Marketron, the goal is to evolve and modernize our software so we can increase our rate of innovation. We are also looking at increasing the parts of the supply chain that our software currently addresses.
Radio Ink: What does the sale of Marketron mean for the radio industry?
Michael Collins: The sale isn’t the big news, rather the new owner’s commitment to invest in the company and our products. With more resources available to the company, the amount of innovation we can bring to the industry will significantly increase.
Radio Ink: Why did Diversis purchase Marketron?
Michael Collins: The company is currently in a solid position with a strong team, dominant market share, and healthy balance sheet. By adding additional financial resources to the company, we are very confident that we can see significant growth in our core business, plus new areas like digital and programmatic.
Radio Ink: You mentioned “evolve our product offerings” in the press release. Should radio expect to see some new products?
Michael Collins: Both new products and evolved versions of our existing products should be anticipated this year. Immediate focus will be on better integration of our digital products, improved data access and streamlined user experience. Multiple additional areas will also be addressed after we gather feedback from our clients on their needs.
Radio Ink: How is programmatic buying doing so far and how do you see that progressing in the future, specifically to radio?
Michael Collins: While programmatic is quickly becoming the dominant form of media buying in other channels, it is still nascent in broadcast audio. However, the same forces that are driving the growth of programmatic in other channels – efficiency, transparency, increased ROI -– will eventually come to radio. The radio industry still has some infrastructure issues to solve before programmatic can take off, most significantly automation, but investment in this area will be well justified by bringing new ad spend to broadcast audio.
To the contrary! Programmatic will mean that radio stations will be able to monetize the 20-40% of inventory that typically goes unsold. Nothing will replace feet on the street selling – it’s one of the great assets of our industry! This is really about increasing the size of the radio advertising pie and bringing in new dollars to stations.
It means: While they may show an acceptable bottom line for awhile, they will not be improving programming or generating more effective, locally produced advertising.
It also means that radio, infamous for defaulting to and demonstrating copy-cat behaviours, will be replicating portions of some of the strategies and, as a result, end up blasting away at its own feet – turning toes into a pink mist.
And, as Fred suggests: Jargon has become gibberish.
Programming buying means no negotiation on rates and no salespeople it eliminates sales commissions and having to pay for salaries and benefits to salespeople. The agency buyer plugs directly into the radio station’s traffic system, sees the avails and rates, and buys the inventory.
Or not
I swear to God… After trying, and failing to interpret the gibberish and jargon spoken by the new Marketron CEO, I was forced to click away to regain my focus. Maybe I’ve spent too many years in the trenches because I don’t even understand the language of radio any more.
Fred Lundgren
KCAA
it means more automation and technology and less need for human labor
Larry, Thanks… THAT I can understand !!!
It sounds like the new CEO needs to hire you as his interpreter
So, if I understand all this new radio, we pay Marketron, we pay Nielsen and we pay agencies too. Then we sit back and wait for the flood of sales to come to us? Anyone else? I’m sure we also need to pay someone to sit on their butt and watch all this unfold on the computer screen..
Give me strength