Sponsor (July-Dec 1955)

TIMEBUYING BASICS were 10 or 15 years ago and daytime radio has held up very well. If we program our nighttime like the daytime, we think it will make it easier for the listener to tune in radio. Take the Amos 'n Andy Music Hall program, Monday through Friday, for example. If an advertiser right now comes in and buys five periods of that throughout the week, he can buy that for $15,000, and during a single week he reaches over five million different homes compared with the four million for $19,000 that I spoke of in 1948. And he gets five minutes of commercial. Because he reaches some of those homes more than once because the program is on five times a week, during the course of the week the advertiser makes impressions in over 9 million homes. In other words more homes reached with more commercial time for less money now than in 1948. That is just one little example of what I am talking about, and I use it only to illustrate the point which I am trying to make — that you have to analyze, you have got to study all the values that are available today. We are just beginning to do that in some media. I think we can learn a lot from studying the past, present and particularly the future of this medium, network radio. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q. What gives a network tv program more impact than a tv announcement? Was this your client alone who felt this way? (Asked of Jim Luce) A. 'From Jim Luce) We have yards of comparisons back in the office on network vs. spot. It actually is a question of weights. By the time you compare network and spot, almost all the advantages are on the side of spot. It is more flexible. You can place shorter-term contracts. I think a lot of it depends on the weights given, and one of the important weights in network is this thing which we might call prestige and importance. In the particular instance I was thinking of, it was felt quite important that the prestige factor, the merchandising value of a program, the greater ability to work within the commercial format within the allotted period of three minutes or six minutes depending upon the amount of network time — did outweigh the value of the spot announcements that we were using. The announcements, we felt, had done a splendid job, but in this case the program — there is no doubt about it — does have an impact which you just don't get with announcements. Not that they haven't done a superb job and will continue to do so, but they are not as identified. Sometimes the importance of that can depend on the advertiser and the job to be done. TOM McDERMOTT: Do you have anything to add, John, on the comparison between network and spot? JOHN KAROL: Network radio has changed a great deal so that now there are more opportunities for timebuyers to use network radio. It is now possible to make a network operation closely parallel a spot operation. In short, here again is the challenge to examine the availabilities. Q. How best can radio change the buying of time from the basis of listenership to the basis of circulation? In other words, instead of selling quarter-hour ratings, how about selling weekly audiences? A. 'From John Karol) That is one of the things that just comes from a process of education. I think that when we get a five-time-a-week pattern, such as I have talked about in nighttime, and such as we have had in daytime radio since radio networks' very inception, you do have a different kind of audience than a daily audience. For example, in the old days when Procter & Gamble was among the earliest users of daytime radio, lots of people thought they were silly to spend their money that way. A typical network rating was 3 in the daytime but its weekly rating was not 3. Somewhere between 3 and 15 is the true audience of the five-time a week show. Actually its average weekly audience is about five times the daily PAGE 25 audience in terms of different homes reached. JIM LUCE: When you take the quarter-hour ratings and what you pay, it looks like a silly buy. Yet there is an impact with the identification that may be the deciding factor in the sale. So I think it is all part of our responsibility to know how to interpret these figures to the people we work with, and not let them grasp the easiest thing — the end figures. They want only end figures. Our job is to find out how these figures should be interpreted. Q. Are cost-per1,000 comparisons generally made between network and spot? If so, how? A. <From Jim Luce) I think I can promise you that cost-per1,000 comparisons are made between network and spot and they are not easy to handle. I was making one just the other day between a quarter-hour network program and some local programs we had on for a client, and in some markets he used announcements and in some he used five-minute weather, in other places a quarterhour news program twice a week, and the cost-per1.000 needed quite an amount of interpretation. We tried to bring it down to cost-per-commercial-minute, which we felt was a move in the right direction. Of course, the announcements won hands down on any cost-per1.000, as they always do. TOM McDERMOTT: Maybe I can add a little to it. I think in most cases that the decision as to whether to buy network or spot is usually made before you look at cost-per1,000 figures. The decision isn't going to rest on whether or not a schedule of spot delivers a better costper1,000 than a network buy. Probably the best reason for that is that there is usually no standard of comparison, except if you have a prearranged schedule of spots, and have Nielsen make a special run of his cards. Q. Could you compare an individual market and come out with anything? Say, for instance, your cost-percommercial-minute on a network program in Jacksonville, Fla., as compared with a minute spot evening time; would you come out with anything valid in that? A. (From Tom McDermott) I think you'd come out with several items of information, and it depends on what you wanted to do with them, because, again, you usually are comparing things that you don't have the opportunity of buying competitively. In other words, if you are looking at the Bing Crosby show in Miami, vs. a schedule of announcements in Miami, you can get a measure of comparative performance there using local rating services. Q. Would it give you any kind of an answer as far as buying a particular station or network is concerned? A. (From Tom McDermott) If we are buying Bing Crosby for a motor car manufacturer and we're trying to show the local dealer committee how smart a buy was made. I think we would have some numbers to show them. It depends on what we want to do with those numbers. Q. Do you think network radio must compete more directly with spot in order to forge ahead? What advantage does network offer over spot? A. (From John Karol) Yes, I think that network radio and spot are more competitive in going after the same kind of business, and yet by the same token they are more alert because we have joined forces to sell radio as a medium. When you have a national program, you do have a period of time that you can call your own. It has promotion and and merchandising values. It has good-will value. We have learned from the development of television to adapt ourselves still further in network radio. By that I mean this, that television has because of its high cost made it necessary for many advertisers to share programs or to buy what amounts to spots in network television shows. You are familiar with the several advertisers in the so-called spectaculars, because very few advertisers could afford to sponsor the whole program. We are adapting the same kind of technique to radio. There are ad