(By Mike McVay) A long time ago, in an alternate universe, I was a Program Director and Morning Talent on a radio station in a medium market. I did those things that morning talent do when in smaller markets and there are limited marketing resources. That means appearing in public at promotions & events, and participating in stunts, as a part of your every week work life. Including remote broadcasts wearing only a lampshade, from a bathtub in a store window and camping out on a billboard.
I’ve ridden donkey’s while playing donkey basketball, played wheelchair basketball, played in charity softball games and charity basketball games against athletes, raced on an ostrich, flown in stunt planes and F/A18 Hornets during air shows, gone up in hot air balloons, bungie jumped and tandem-parachuted off of a mountain. I’ve ridden an elephant multiple times in my career. The first time I road an elephant it included me wearing green silk pants, slippers with curled toes, a turban and … I was shirtless. Not necessarily something that I was proud of, but I’ll do almost anything to attract an audience.
It was during one of those early parts of my career when a market manager told me that I couldn’t talk about the circus that was opening in town. They’d not bought advertising with us. We would ignore them. If they’re not going to spend money with us, then we’re not going to mention them. We hurt ourselves and not them. Because our audience heard about the circus elsewhere, and they listened elsewhere to win tickets, and get information.
The damage we did to ourselves was underscored when listeners called to complain that we’d missed the elephants on Mainstreet. Traffic was at a standstill. We ignored the circus parade. In a small town, it is a big deal, and it sends a message that your station is unaware of what’s happening in your community.
The same can be said for the similar situation when a superstar artist of a format comes to town and your competitor gets the ad buy for the concert, the tickets to giveaway, and a direct connection to the station. You can ignore the concert, and avoid the artist, but that move heightens awareness of your competition and their connectivity to the artists music.
Don’t misunderstand my point. I was a Market Manager. I owned radio stations. I “get it.” If you’re known for promoting events and concerts without an ad buy, then why would anyone every buy your station? The smart approach would be to face the situation from one of two different directions. One being to wait until a week before the event to acknowledge it, which misses advance sales benefit to the sponsor, but acknowledges that your station didn’t simply miss the event.
The other approach is to engage with and support your formats artists by buying tickets and giving them away on the air. You don’t need to buy a lot of concert tickets. Having enough to show your involvement is the key. Don’t make the audience go elsewhere to win a ticket to a performer who is a star on your format.
Not even when there were fewer radio stations, fewer television stations and no internet, did it make sense to ignore anything of magnitude in a local community. Today, with many audio sources, video sources, streaming, smart speakers, and phones whose communication capabilities dwarf computers that once filled entire rooms, it is impossible to ignore anything of significance. Yet, some stations do. I’m not sure that the word shortsightedness is strong enough to characterize this mistake.
Mike McVay is President of McVay Media and can be reached at [email protected]
This is really a thoughtful piece, Mike. It took me back to my emotionally charged programming days. I fought hard for my station, but not always smart. I always put the audience first during those spiteful forks in the road when you have to make a difficult decision. Nice job.
Mike…your article hit home for me. In my 45 years on the air I’ve done many of the promotional things you mentioned. However, it’s a fine line to decide what to air and what not to air when someone decides for or against spending ad dollars with you. Being in a small market, here’s what was decided…
1) Businesses that don’t advertise with you don’t get their names mentioned on a snow day that they’ve closed or are closing early.
2) A large outdoor country concert stopped advertising with us and spent all their ad dollars on much larger markets. We stopped talking about them and mentioned the other outdoor concerts that did advertise with us. Eventually, they came back with ad dollars and tickets.
3) There was push back from those higher in the company about a new brewery that opened in town. Those up the ladder gave them free advertising on our website. I argued that it would affect a number of bars in the surrounding area who were already advertising with us. I was told that I “worried too much.” Yet I knew every bar owner and manager and knew it wouldn’t go over well. In fact one posted about it a week later on our face book page. 2 of the bars went out of business and a third changed hands after the brewery opened.
Knowing your listeners and your sponsors is the single biggest step to making good market decisions.
I really appreciate your response and the shared perspective. Thank you for sharing. -M