[cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Mon Feb 2 16:41:08 GMT 2015

I had the same problem when running The Bay in Poole and Bournemouth.
Without a word of a lie, 3 different charities phoned one morning asking for
commercial airtime for free. I asked if they had any budget for advertising
their events, 2 said yes. But none thought that we would charge!

Back to the spot rate
 I don’t know any station who can sell all their
inventory at full rate card, so rather than £80 a day think just £20.    

Here’s another tail  - At The Bay we doubled our published rates and guess
what, we attracted bigger and better clients. Yes there we’re fewer and I’m
not suggesting that money was rolling in, it wasn’t, but it stopped us going
broke. It also meant we were selling  to companies needing to raise
awareness as much as generate leads – an important factor for small
stations.     

To add a bit of perspective, most local commercial stations won’t get out of
bed to sell a package for less than £1000 at spots rates around £4 upwards,
it’s just not worth their while. The minimum to get on a Heart station is
around £4500 and a regional is near double that. 

Commercial sales – yes been there, it’s difficult, but a rate of 23p a spot
is surely putting the station at risk?   

Kind Regards

Alan

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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Canalside's The
Thread
Sent: 02 February 2015 15:06
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Mmm ?

there’s the old adage           ‘’we’re worth, what we can get’’
and no more.

It’s a bit similar to going to a record fair, it depends which area you go
to. A vintage record on the circuit and going for around £75 quid, might
only fetch £15 at a different venue.

Some areas are more wealthy than others ?   is this Station operating in an
area of deprivation and less businesses per-head ?

It’s a learning curve setting the rates 
. What some consider cost effective
others may think too much                we have a Package 1 
 it cost’s =
£123.34p for the WHOLE YEAR     I won’t go into what you get but certainly a
pub or organisation that put events is onto a winner as they get to use our
events planner for free, they get an advert popping up here and there and a
logo on the website 

..one woman who runs a bar in Macclesfield told me
that our prices were      wait for it    ‘’extortionate’’  !!!     her words
not mine, and how could any business afford that sort of cost ?? !
I explained   ‘’no no no’’   ‘’there seems to be a misunderstanding’’
‘’this isn’t weekly or monthly, this is for the whole year’’

She said words to the effect of ‘’no chance’’       

The business does appear here and there but mainly in the areas where they
can FREE-LOAD. And there lies another problem 
. Some people seem to think
that because we are Community Radio and we are Voluntary led then everything
for some bizarre reason is free ??      this Lady was of a similar opinion,
and got quite uppity.

I informed her that I was coming to Town on the Friday with 6 of my mates,
and we were so enthused by the Bar that we were going to spend the whole
evening in there drinking 

.. presuming of course that all the Beer was
free   ??????

Even after being sarcastic, she simply didn’t ‘get it’ ??     it seems to be
rife in our business doesn’t it ?   this ‘’’not getting it’’’ ?

Nick

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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Alan Coote
Sent: 02 February 2015 14:37
To: cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk; cma-l at commedia.org.uk
Subject: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Can your station survive if you charge 23p per spot?

I just had a 2 minute look around the web at community radio rate cards and
found a station (it shall remain nameless) which, even if they sold their
whole inventory 24x7, would make less than £80 per day.

The reality is more likely to be £20 per day income at that spot rate.  

As far as I can tell the station isn’t funded by a parent organisation, they
don’t run a membership scheme and there’s little off air income either, so
it’s difficult to see how they could manage their running costs.  

Personally I think this is nuts and also devalues the medium.  Come on guys

know your worth.  

Kind Regards

Alan

Alan Coote

Managing Director

5 Digital Limited

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