Posted by John on November 06, 2009 at 11:49:08:
In Reply to: Re: Board Reflections for November 5 posted by Walt on November 06, 2009 at 10:20:39:
It is probably cheaper today than in years past to do election night coverage. P/t air talent at local stations make about $8 per hour. You could do call ins via cell phone or skype which is very cheap (although it may not sound "as good" as an ISDN line).
Here is the issue as I see it and I'll use WBAB FM on LI as an example. They are not the only station that fits this mold but they are a really good example.
Radio stations like WBAB do what is good for generating ratings. They play about 300 well tested rock songs over and over again. They have all air talents outside of morning drive read very tight carefully scripted un-soulful mechanical mic breaks with phrases such as "50 minutes of music every hour" and my all time favorite "if you don't know the names of the songs we play, click on wbab.com" (laughable because I think almost everyone knows every song they play). Anyway there is little debate here. This method WORKS in producing ratings. WBAB has had good ratings for years with this strategy.
However, with good ratings, WBAB has lost revenue every year for about the last ten years. So even with good ratings they do not increase revenue.
The issue is the pd understanding the job of a pd. The job of a PD is to create a sell-able product. Most of the time you need high ratings to maximize national buys and local buys that use ad agencies. So the PD's job is to get ratings. The PD of BAB has done this.
But.....
Even with ratings they are not increasing revenue. You can correctly argue the economy has a lot to do with this and you can argue that new media has stolen some revenue. But could a smart pd and smart sales manager find other ways to grow revenue by creating special programming that compliments the strategic plan? I say YES!
Could the pd and Sales Mgr say, “ election night is coming up, we could offer a client or clients the exclusive opportunity to sponsor updates from election HQ's”? On-air you present them as very quick update minutes from local hq. Maybe you find a CPA firm, college with a political science program, or company that produces horse manure to sponsor these.
If the reports are short and they bring in revenue from someone who would not have bought the station otherwise then they are worth doing.
But todays PD's are lazy.... It takes real work to plan ahead. It takes real work to think about how to present this to the audience so it does not impact ratings negatively and it takes a sense of understanding the role of the pd as creator of a sell-able product which includes but is not limited to producing high ratings.
Yes you can argue that corporate may have rules. But please (unfairly using BAB as an example) Do we really need to hear Fingers saying "55 minutes of music every hour"... Maybe ten mice breaks (spread out over five hours with plenty of music in between) of les than two minutes from a local election HQ CAN produces a popshop that would not have been there otherwise.
And lastly let's not forget spots on BAB and other local stations are almost always fewer than 100 bucks at night even under 50 and as low as 10 in some cases. They are not risking much here doing election coverage.