U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1959)

report from PGW's Teter Asks Radio To Meet Challenges Ahead If radio is to fulfill its proper destiny, it is going to have to face up to several challenges, in the opinion of Robert H. Teter, vice president and director of radio for Peters, Griffin, Woodward Inc. He suggests that the road ahead for radio must find a way to meet the following needs: • To sell the real values of stations and of radio. • To truly measure the radio audience rather than merely survey it. • To make sure that programming and promotional policies are utilizing the basic resources of radio. • In selling, talk about the totality of the radio audience, the phenomenon that makes radio the strongest. 'Mind's Eye' Mr. Teter declares there are two "basic natural resources" of radio that cannot be found in any other advertising medium. "First, the one that we have always had — the ability through words, music and sound effects to entertain and inform people with the magic of the mind's eye perceiving thoughts and ideas that would not be possible to convey in the limited area of print or pictures. This is the magic of radio." Mr. Teter explains that a listener interprets the radio sound in a personal way and therefore builds a mental image motivating desire in an individual way that shades realism. "The second natural resource," he continues, "and a new one to the radio industry since the arrival of television, is the ability for people to be entertained and informed literally any place under almost any imaginable set of conditions." The PGW radio director, who made these remarks late last month before the Missouri Broadcasters Association, believes that radio needs a good dose of positive selling. "We have segmented ourselves, not so nuich in fact as in appearance. Selling tactics have been all too often designed to sell one against the other." He underlines this idea with the thought that this type of selling is not practiced by any other advertising medium. 'Audience Action' "It is imperative that we find ways and means of transmitting to the national level what the local advertisers know so well," Mr. Teter states. "Let's sell the most important thing we have to offer an advertiser—namely, 'Audience Action.' . . . "If we program, promote and sell the 'Audience Action' we create out of these two natural resources, your station, individually, and radio, as an industry, will eventually become a need— an in-demand medium by national advertisers." On the subject of surveys and measurements, Mr. Teter points to radio's great car audience of nearly 38 million sets as an example of an area of radio that advertisers know little about. "Radio listening in automobiles is big enough to be a separate medium all by itself. In fact, radio is America's biggest outdoor advertising medium." He offers this analysis of radio's "numbers" problem: "Print media, for years, have been providing the kind of numbers I am talking about — not ratings or page readership, but qualitative information that provides an accurate and meaningful profile of their audiences. They know how much money their audiences make, where they live, the kind of cars they drive, the age of their children, and everything from how much tooth paste to how much nail polish they buy. And they use these numbers to sell in a positive manner those advertisers whose customer profile matches that of their own audiences." • • • C.V.S/ .V..r.-/>c niiil Aiii. Miiij f,9) . . . you'll discover why scores of national and regional advertisers have followed the trend to WIST! Seeing is believing. Take a look — see for yourself! Your PGW Colonel will be glad fo show you copies they'll tell you why . . . IS the best radio buy in Charlotte A BROADCASTING COMPANY Of THE SOUTH STATION My Mommy Listens to KFWB Use Pulse. Use Hooper. Use Nielsen. All three rate KFWB *1 in total audience in the L.A. area. Buy KFWB . . . first in Los Angeles. It s the thing to do! 6419 Hollywood Blvd . Hollywood 28 HO 3 5151 ROBERT M. PURCEIL, President and Gen Manager ItMES F. SIMONS, Gen Sales Manager Represented nationally by )OHM BUIR L CO. U. S. RADIO • November 1959 53