Sponsor (Sept-Dec 1957)

WHERE SPOT BUYS ARE MADE From North, South, East and West come the spot tv and radio dollars that make up this year's $600 million pot. The higgest pot ever, the same players will likely ante up in the same proportion as they did in 1948 SRA ana lysis of 1956 spot : sources Radio and tv combined New York 60% Chicago 16% St. Louis 6% Los Angeles 4% San Francisco 4% Detroit 3.5% Dallas 2% Boston 1.5% \tlanta 1% Other cities 2% m rom coast-to-coast spot dollars are pouring into radio and television at the rate of about $600 million annually (tv's share is about 2.5 times radio's). From what advertising centers does this money come? What share of the whole does each contribute? And has this picture changed much in the last decade? To answer these questions, sponsor surveyed a number of station representative firms. From them were obtained breakdowns of the percentages of dollar volume business written during 1956 in their various branches in both radio and tv. Where similar information was available for past years extending back to the early days of t\. this too was obtained for purposes of comparison. The individual reports from each rep were added together and averaged out to strike an industry composite. Then, in the case of the 1956 breakdown, this was integrated with the recent analysis for that same year that was done by the Station Representatives Association. The results of this industry composite appear in the accompam in<i charts. What trends are pointed up by the analysis? First, the largest volume of business comes from New York, which is not surprising inasmuch as that citv has recently been called "the front office for 95% of the world's business'' Chicago, accounting for about onethird of New York's placements, comes next. San Francisco and Los Angeles, although individualK contributing less than St. Louis (see SRA analysis chart at left), together place about !!' < of the national spot business. Thus about 87/Y of all radio and t\ spot business emanates from New ^ oik. Chicago. San Francisco and Los Angeles. This picture of the broadcasting industry has not changed substantial!) since television appeared on the scene. Since 1948. the changes have only involved a few percentage points up or down in the case of any market place. The high point percentage that Chicago showed in 1952 (see large chart) might have resulted from the trend in the early boom days of tv to move some of the New York purchasing business out to the Windy Citv. The trend was short-lived, however, and now Chicago has settled down again to doing an average placement a shade under what it was placing in 1948. It should also be recalled that 1948 was the year that Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample moved the buying for two major accounts (P&G and General Mills) from its Chicago headquarters to its New York office. But all in all. considering tv's impact in so many quarters, the changes in sources of broadcast revenue have remained fairly constant. Such buying marts as Atlanta, Detroit, St. Louis, Seattle, Boston and the rest have registered slight ups-and-downs. but these could result from clients or agencies moving about, or — as might happen in Detroit — a big sales push by a single industn might up the percentage a fraction for that year. It is also well to remember that while tie percentage total of 13' r being disbursed by all those cities other than \Y .-Chi.S.F.-L.A. may loom not too large, it still represents about $80 million dollars in spot business this year. And. to judge by the chart, these other centers are doing more business today than in '52 or '48. Another fact worth noting is that a lot of this mone\ represents some product accounts of considerable size. For example, what could well help swell Minneapolis' spot dollars is the fact that Knox Reeves Advertising in that citj handles such products as General Mills" \\ heaties and Bisquick. In the same way, Gardner Advertising in St. SI SPONSOR 21 SEPTEMBER 195';