[cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Mon Feb 2 18:34:54 GMT 2015

Hi Pippa,

I’m really pleased to hear you have an enterprise hour. 

--

This is not a plug…  (ok it is) - Very soon there’s news for Let’s Talk Business partner stations about earning from our affiliate scheme, message me below if you want to air the programme – end of commercial.

--

Of course one should help charities if you can, but why should you not ask for an appropriate payment if they have an advertising or marketing budget – many do.

By all means spread your love but I think it’s important to be consistent and transparent. I found a solution which worked was to give full support to a nominated charity or two and have a charities rate card for the rest. 

Just so you don’t think we’re heartless bunch, 5 Digital are currently helping a local cancer support charity, several other foundations and not-for-profits.    

Kind Regards

Alan

Hear Alan Every Week on Let’s Talk Business The UK’s Premier Radio Programme For Current and Future Entrepreneurs - Now Broadcast To 5 Million People  <http://www.letstalkbusinessonline.com/>  

Email - alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk

Phone - 0800 949 6655

Mobile - 07801 518858

Twitter - @TheAlanCoote <http://www.twitter.com/TheAlanCoote> 

Web - http://www.5digital.co.uk <http://www.5digital.co.uk/>  

Let’s Talk Business

Twitter - @LTBShow <http://www.twitter.com/LTBShow> 

Web - http://www.LetsTalkBusinessOnline.com <http://www.letstalkbusinessonline.com/> 

cid:image001.gif at 01CE03CD.223AC920

The Media Production, Broadcasting and Training Company

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Pippa at Curly Radio
Sent: 02 February 2015 17:18
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

My goodness I’m surprised to read that you wanted to charge charities to advertise their events.    Before I set up Wycombe Sound, another CR practitioner warned me “not to bring a charity in, because otherwise they will all want a go”.

In Wycombe, over two RSLs we actively invited charities to come in and talk about their work and events.  Many did, and with only the shortest reference to fundraising as we wound up the interviews.  Listeners loved hearing about all the good work which was going on under their noses, which otherwise they wouldn’t know about.

As a result of the interesting and varied local content, which obviously contained more than just interviews with charities, the audience built quickly and businesses came knocking with cash in hand because they knew we were reaching listeners. 

Going further, in Wycombe Sound’s most recent outing, we invited ‘very small businesses’ – the sole traders, crafters, mobile hairdressers and beauticians, chimney sweeps etc, to come in for 5 minutes and talk about their businesses for free. We called it “Enterprise Hour” and ran it once a week for four weeks.  I thought we would be inundated, but we weren’t – I think that type of slot takes time to build – but the listeners loved it because it roused their interest.  Again, we had lots of interest in advertising from the business sector.  In fact, we had to turn some away because we couldn’t give them an impact in the short time we had remaining.

I’m sure different strategies work for different stations.  For me though, the content comes first and that in turn will build audience and revenue.

Pippa

07973 710963

@curly_radio

@wycombesound

From: Alan Coote <mailto:alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk>  

Sent: Monday, February 02, 2015 4:41 PM

To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List' <mailto:cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>  

Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

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

Hear Alan Every Week on Let’s Talk Business The UK’s Premier Radio Programme For Current and Future Entrepreneurs - Now Broadcast To 5 Million People  <http://www.letstalkbusinessonline.com/>  

Email - alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk

Phone - 0800 949 6655

Mobile - 07801 518858

Twitter - @TheAlanCoote <http://www.twitter.com/TheAlanCoote> 

Web - http://www.5digital.co.uk <http://www.5digital.co.uk/>  

Let’s Talk Business

Twitter - @LTBShow <http://www.twitter.com/LTBShow> 

Web - http://www.LetsTalkBusinessOnline.com <http://www.letstalkbusinessonline.com/> 

cid:image001.gif at 01CE03CD.223AC920

The Media Production, Broadcasting and Training Company

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

  _____  

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

  _____  

 <http://www.avast.com/> 

This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com/>  protection is active. 

  _____  

_______________________________________________

Reply - cma-l at commedia.org.uk

The cma-l mailing list is a members' service provided by the Community Media Association - http://www.commedia.org.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/community_media
http://www.facebook.com/CommunityMediaAssociation
Canstream Internet Radio & Video: http://www.canstream.co.uk/
_______________________________________________

Mailing list guidelines: http://www.commedia.org.uk/about/cma-email-lists/email-list-guidelines/
_______________________________________________

To unsubscribe or manage your CMA-L mailing list subscription please visit:
http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cma-l

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/pipermail/cma-l/attachments/20150202/affc2905/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 5394 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/pipermail/cma-l/attachments/20150202/affc2905/attachment.gif>