Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1947)

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How Retailers Increase Profits From Radio 202 typical department stores, 14 specialty stores g/oe the answers, NRDGA coWects and compiles, with an analysis of data made by the Columbia Broadcasting System RADIO IS THE ONE MEDIUM with mass circulation as large as the total market of department and specialty stores. It is the one medium which can change copy fast enough to meet the last-miniue competitive emergencies common to retailing. It is the one mediimi which can convey the warm human reality of a store— make it come alive as a living thing. But it took a war to bring department and specialty stores in any sizeable volume to the broadcast medium. Then, due to shortages of many kinds, including the newsprint shortage, retailers were more or less forced into giving serious consideration to radio advertising. Stores whose radio activities had been sporadic or experimental extended their use of the mediiun. Others began their first use of radio facilities. Today, according to an analysis prepared by the Columbia Broadcasting System for its affiliated stations of a crosssectional, nationwide study by the National Retail Dry Goods Association of 202 typical department stores and 74 spe(ialty stores from coast-to-coast on the sidiject of radio advertising, the picture is very ditferent fiom what it was in prewar days. Between 60 and 70% of the stores in any size community use radio. In big towns, small towns, medium size towns, among large stores, middle-sized ones and small ones, <')(")'',', of ail stores ad\c'rtise on the air. • 292 • There's no such thing as a city beinj either too large or too small for wide spread store use of radio advertising. Ii the average community, about two-third of the stores are on the air, regardless o the number of people (and newspapers in the area. (In the West, this percentag( is somewhat higher, with 9 otit of 10 de partment stores on the air.) What gives these statistics particula significance is the fact that regardless o the types of store, the section of the coun try or the amount of gross sales volume 33% of the programs are in the "test' stage, with 73% less than two years old a the time the survey was made. (Th NRDGA survey, published in July 1946 was based on 1945 department and spe cialty store expenditiue, with the CB analysis published May, 1947.) Every third program is less than si: months old and better than seven out o ten have been on the air less than tw( years. Only one out of ten has been oi the air more than five years. Each one of these programs represent an investment in time and money. Upoi each of them rests the responsibility o jjroducing satisfacloiy lesuhs, for to spc^ii sor a program a short time, then to aban don it, is to destroy an investment cjiiiti comparable to any investment in stor ecpiipment or merchandise. How to keep these programs on th air, that is, how to make ladio adver tising successful, is comj>Iicatecl by th fact that while H7% of the stores reporl RADIO SHOWM A NSH I