Monday, July 20, 2009

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE SAME THING

Today begins the release of the Spring 09 complete Arbitron ratings. Will downward spiraled broadcasters be able to grab a hold of the ground above the hole and pull themselves out? I wonder if radio commercial advertising is so deep in the hold, that these ratings stories make no difference to the sales managers of radio stations trying to make an income. I ask a sales manager in a FACEBOOK chat last week "How's business, do you see an up-tick" and he replied "I'm mopping the floors". The RAB President danced around revenue issues at The Conclave. Instead giving examples of how products and customers have digitized. Programmers used to be excited when ratings came out, especially when they had good trends and the final quarterly would take control of the ratings period with the added weighting. We would plan ratings parties, The air staff wold ask how was their day parts?, ways to present the information to the sales staff in hopes that there would be increases in numbers to sell more. Why has this changed? Are we so use to the doom and gloom, we now just look at the ratings and fail to find stories, knowing that it will be the same old song dance for over a year. The battle cry needs to be; Get back to basics, live and local, community spirited radio, personality posture, out on the streets, in the social network and make impressions. Are the sales departments selling these stories or are they Wishin' and Hopin'?

No comments:

Post a Comment