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Subject To* — And Other Faults of Spots
By C. E. MIDGLEY Jr. Batten, Barton, Durstine 8C Osborn Inc., New York
^ome Annoyances That Confront an Agency Time Buyer; iVhat Kind of Service Is Expected From Stations?
A X ALL-DAY session on spot Z_» broadcasting: was drawing £ ^ Co a close, when the advertising manager of the client
tsked, "What do you mean that the gency is the buyer and that the . tations are the sellers of spot -roadcasting? They never want to -ell a period as badly as you want so buy it." That was a revolutioneiy interpretation of the business, encils were laid down, estimates rorgotten and a general discussion ■msued.
The first argument refuting the ■statement ran something like this, -ladio stations have sales mana
ers, sales promotion managers and talesmen. They picture advertising , .gencies as a single source through -'hich from two to two hundred adscrtisers can be sold. They allow ■ne standard 4-A's agency commis^.ion on business placed with them , y agencies. All of this did not ap:ear as though the stations considrred themselves as buyers, r The advertising manager smiled nd said, "Theoretically that's cor[sct, but how does an agency select be stations which it recommends ■ > its clients?" The answer to that Ine was easy. There are a number tf factors to be considered — power, requency, network affiliation, prorams, broadcast, management, cost nd results produced for other adertisers are a few of them.
Best for the Job [ "Well," the a. m. renlied, "all of faose factors lead to the recommenjation of one station in each city 5r any given campaign. These are le stations you consider as the est bets for the particular job, ren't they?" There was no argument here for an agency submits a .5t of stations which it feels best lited for the job under consideraon. It is not always the same . 5t, of course, for campaigns differ 'y. requirements.
[■ This was the answer the adverI ;ing manager wanted. "Correct," ; said. "Next, the program is se'Cted, the schedule set and the estiates approved. Then, the agency ants the best period available on ich of those stations much more an the individual stations want to 11 them. Why? Because they have commended these stations and be■^ve that they will do the most ef^ctive job for the advertiser." But ;ill, there was no conclusive proof ^at the stations were not sellers. : the agency cannot secure a suitlile period on the station recomended there are many cities in hich two or more stations rank Dsely in listener preference. A itable period could probably be und on another station without ;rceptibly weakening the cam'iign and it behooves the station 'igmally queried to make every ^:ort to sell the agency on using
time that was available. " The client pondered over this be^re saying, "That's all very well, ■^t what about cities in which there one standout station w'th only
WHAT do time buyers and sponsors talk about? Spots, says Ned Midgley, who, like all spot buyers finds himself in some hot ones now and then. It seems there are good spots and bad spots, and just plain spots. Mr. Midgley is interested at the moment in the bad ones, with which he appears to hare had some contact. He is a master of the art of making a gripe stand up and do tricks. And then he goes after those "Subject to's". Some are unavoidable, he concedes, but one or two others make the hardest boded time buyer jump out of his plush chair and vehemently curse the day that kilocycles were born.
poor periods available? Or, take the case of some specialized campaign such as news broadcasts, time signals, chain break announcements or baseball games which might be sold out on the recommended station and not available on any other station in town. There's a case in which the agency and the advertiser are willing to pay almost any price and they have to sell the station on making some such feature available to them."
That was true, but in the case of a specialized campaign all the availability data is assembled prior to the final approval of the series. Then, the advertiser knows in advance just where he can buy the type of broadcasting he wants and if it is not available on a sufficient number of stations, a different kind of program can be devised. If a stand-out station has only poor periods available, a bit of salesmanship on the part of the station and some intelligent juggling of schedules can, very often, produce a highly desirable spot.
And so the discussion continued. The advertising manager held steadfastly to his belief that agencies as a rule were much more anxious to buy time than the stations were to sell it. He was par
MR. MIDGLEY
tially right. That is true — after a certain point is reached. Stations must do a world of selling to agencies long before their call letters appear on any specific estimates to advertisers. Then, when the station has been recommended to the client and availabilities quoted, quite naturally the agency wants the time in question. They expect to be able to deliver just as they can with any other form of media on a perfectly simple business transaction. Spot broadcasting is sold by agencies in competition with all other forms of advertising and the amount of selling to clients that is actually done would be a complete surprise to most stations.
Thus, this first question was settled but some other highly interesting concepts of spot broadcasting were brought to light. National spot business has recorded an amazing growth during the past five years. Will it continue at this same pace for the next five years? The answer is emphatically "No" — unless some much-needed changes are made in station operation.
Upward Goes the Cost
In the first place, the cost of spot broadcasting has increased at a rate that is far from justified. Several years ago when a station increased its rates, some explanation accompanied the announcement. Now, a rate increase is accom panied by nothing more than the new rate card and a bald statement of the date on which the increase will go into effect. Most of these increases have no logical reasoning behind them and are too obviously an attempt to charge what the traffic will bear. All the sound arguments for spot broadcasting wall soon vanish if costs rise much higher.
Every spot broadcasting schedule is loaded down with too many "subject to's". A partial list of them would include:
1. Subject to Acts of God.
2. Subject to removal for network programs.
3. Subject to Daylight Saving Time changes twice yearly.
4. Subject to removal for events of national and local importance.
5. Subject to demands for political time.
6. Subject to baseball game interruptions.
7. Subject to the whims and slipshod handling of the individual stations.
Practically nothing can be done about the first five conditions listed above. The advertiser is fully aware of them and goes into any spot campaign with his eyes open to these eventualities. He raises his left eyebrow at the sixth point and wonders how it is possible to sell the same time to two advertisers. Well, that too, is a peculiarity of radio. He takes his courtesy announcements and says no more.
The seventh condition above has never appeared in any station contract but it embraces a situation which is doing more to tear down the structure of national spot broadcasting than any other single factor. It covers the many "how could it have happened" occurrences which arise on every spot campaign.
For example, an advertiser placed a 26-week campaign of five recorded programs weekly, for a juvenile audience in the early evening, starting in February. Realizing that Daylight Saving Time became effective the last week in April, simultaneously with nlacing the original order he placed a reservation for a later period starting at the time change. The reservation was acknowledged by the station and the series began. The time change came and the station then sold a highly desirable later period to a local advertiser and offered the national advertiser a period at noon or an hour earlier than he had been using.
Standardization Needed Another example is the case of a station which failed to notify the agency that a transcription had not arrived until four o'clock one afternoon when the program was scheduled to be broadcast at 7 :30 that evening.
These two examples are typical of the many similar happenings which occur on every spot campaign. They are avoidable and that is the distressing part of it. Stations continue to handle their national business in a careless manner year in and year 9ut. Naturally the advertisers are disturbed when they do not receive the service they contracted for and begin to draw comparisons between radio and other media. Agencies, in closer daily contact with radio, can more readily understand many of the unusual circumstances which arise but when it is simply a case of inefficient management or poor business practice they are at a loss to either explain or justify.
The time is fast approaching when there should be some kind of standardization of rate cards and discounts. The variety of discounts encountered in figuring a spot estimate makes it a monumental task, necessitating the use of a calculating machine, slide rule, reams of paper and, in many cases, a halfnelson. If every station would show on its rate card the net rates for each period of time for the standard frequencies, it would save the calculation of these costs thousands of times each month.
'ROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising
August i, 1937 • Page 15
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