Growing Your Billing With Heavy TV Viewers

(By Charlie Sislen) MY past several posts have focused on how to document for a potential advertiser the fact that their target customers may not be watching broadcast TV.

A savvy radio rep can use this data to convince said advertiser to switch some of their budget to radio. They can do this by showing which audience segments are driving TV consumption. Who they are can help drive radio billing.

First – who are they? Previously, I documented in our randomly chosen market that over half (52.3%) of all TV viewership is being consumed by just 12.4% of all adults. This small segment of the population is where TV advertising clearly has the most impact.

I also documented that these heavy broadcast TV viewers skew older, therefore are often out of most advertisers’ target demographic. However, you can show what they consume, or in many cases, what they do not consume.

We cannot stress enough the power of using local market research. In this case we utilized Scarborough to document to an advertiser that those heavy TV viewers may not be the advertiser’s ideal target audience. For those stations that are non-Scarborough subscribers, there are other available resources like The Media Audit. A resourceful rep can document the profile of the heavy TV consumers and detail what they:
– Earn
– Own
– Consume
– Do for fun and enjoyment

In some cases, this will show that these heavy listeners are not the right target consumers.

This is not just about negative selling against TV. Next, I will outline why radio is a better alternative to television and highlight who its heavy listeners are and why they are more desirable than those heavy TV viewers.

Need help to attack television and grow the radio pie? Feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Charlie Sislen is a partner at Research Director, Inc. He can be reached at 410-956-0363 or by e-mail at [email protected]. This post is part of a series titled “Growing the Radio Pie.” To view past articles, visit The Ratings Experts at Research Director, Inc. online here.