[cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate
Canalside's The Thread
office at thethread.org.uk
Tue Feb 3 17:07:52 GMT 2015
Good stuff from Tony, David, Pippa and Alan
you see, this message board
is a hub of information. I like the value / worth it makes sense and it
was slightly what I was hinting. But alas, the reason why I get myself
worked up sometimes is when it appears as if ‘’’some folk’’’ be them
businesses, be them commercial Stations, be them the authorities or whoever
see no ‘worth and/or value’ in what we do. My problem is I take it
personally and I shouldn’t. This is why I will never in the memory of man
ever be a high flying salesman
having said that, I have Managed to
raise about £350,000 pounds worth of ‘sales’ £££ since 2004, so I must be
doing something right.
We have a bit of a quirky price structure. Our FM frequency is 102.8 FM
so our tariffs go up by £102.80p. We pull a bit of a fast one on the first
Package because we do it monthly, but we move the decimal point .
so it becomes = £10.28p per-month which if you work out over the year totals
= £123.36p which is a touch more than £102.80p
But
. If they start on the £102.80p per-half yearly, they instantly get a
discount as it is £205.60p Package 3 becomes £102.80p x 4
ie:- quarterly payments and so on and so on.
On-Air this equates to a block of adverts within a rotation
.. on Package
1 they receive one spot on the rotation, on Package 2 it doubles to two, on
Package 3 it doubles to four etc etc etc always leave the
full details of the advertising a bit ambiguous, and if they do manage to
fathom it out then you can give em a bonus point, a blue peter badge and a
bit of a discount
failing that, just say ‘’look here mate’’ ‘’leave it
to your Uncle Nick, I’ll look after you’’ which brings me round to
saying that what we are all about is that personal touch, that one to one
connection with the local Community and that is how it must stay.
Fascinating in Davids analysis and others of course is the phrase
‘competition’ and ‘competitors’ this is a hand on heart statement, dib
dib dib I promise, but I haven’t a clue what the local commercial Station
charge, I haven’t a clue what programmes they run, I haven’t a clue who the
Presenters are apart from the ones I know personally, I never look at their
website, I don’t listen to them and I only know who advertises with them if
I ring someone up and that customer happens to tell me
. Quite frankly I
couldn’t give a flying cactus about them. That is why all this nonsense
about competition and rules and restrictions winds me up. It is the
commercial Stations who seem to hung up on us, all we are doing is getting
on with what we are supposed to being whilst at the same time having
obstacles and bureaucratic nonsense put in front of us. We are no threat to
Silk for that very reason
. I don’t care what they do or what they are
doing, but they watch us like a Hawk.
They (as in commercial Radio) are the threat to us, not us the threat to
them restrictions or no restrictions, the sooner the numptys get that
into their heads the better it will be for all of us.
And so the saga / soap opera continues
. I’m trying to work out whether we
are Coronation Street / Eastenders / Emmerdale / Holly Oaks
hopefully
we’re not Crossroads or Brookside ! LOL :-).
Nick
_____
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Tony Bailey
Sent: 03 February 2015 11:12
To: cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate
There's a great deal of good advice on this thread and I don't have a take
on 24/7 operation, although our experience over many years of RSLs was that
we could always sell spots locally to cover our licence costs even though I
was never sure the shops got more customers! The basic rate was around 50
quid excluding production (1980's - 90's) for 28 days (cash up front!). One
thing no one has mentioned I think, we closed down a few shops, or rather,
they were using radio as a last gasp attempt! Another thing, don't let
anyone tell you that small scale commercial radio is bad competition - we
certainly generated customers for ILR after we introduced them to radio
advertising.
Tony Bailey
On 02/02/15 18:14, David Duffy wrote:
Alan asked 'Can your station survive if you charge 23p per spot?' The short
answer is probably, so long as that is not your only product.
Don’t forget, clients will expect a discount if they buy more that one spot
so that 23p at list will rapidly become 16p at discount. Then you have to
ask, will the discounted price cover the cost of sales (COS)? If not then
raise the list price. If it does cover COS then at least it’s making some
(small) contribution to the business. Whether it contributes to your
profitability depends on your underlying costs. And we all know their are
great disparities in this sector when it comes to operating costs.
The problem with underpricing a product is that the perceived value is
reduced. And remember - the value is not related to the worth. Worth is the
language of the seller and is about what the seller can get. Value is the
language of the buyer and is about the usefulness or desirability of the
product to the buyer. Value is not a number. Sometimes, as Nick pointed out
so graphically, some prospective customers cannot see the value (even if you
gave it to them for free!). Equally, as Alan points out rising the price
can work. I often recount the story of how Remington increased the price
for its electric razors and gained more customers because people associated
the low price with low value. Raising the price raised the perceived value.
Pippa’s ‘Enterprise hour’ keys into an emerging trend for 'native
advertising' that we are working on with a number of community stations. It
allow stations to attract income by airing content that is of interest to
listeners and doesn’t compromise the non-commercial sound of the station.
I've done a lot of work on product and service pricing over the years and it
often bears no relationship either to worth or value. We have this
<http://www.theradiopeople.co.uk/pricing> simple table which you might find
useful. It shows the 6 <http://www.theradiopeople.co.uk/pricing> pricing
strategies that are most commonly used in radio. Enjoy!
All the best
David
Senior Partner - The Radio People
On 2 Feb 2015, at 17:17, Pippa at Curly Radio <pippa at curlyradio.com> wrote:
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: <mailto:alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk> Alan Coote
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2015 4:41 PM
To: <mailto:cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk> 'The Community Media Association
Discussion List'
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
<http://www.letstalkbusinessonline.com/> Hear Alan Every Week on Let’s Talk
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From: <mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [
<mailto: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: <mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [
<mailto: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: <mailto:cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk> cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk;
<mailto:cma-l at 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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