[cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Tue Feb 3 18:43:12 GMT 2015

Some advice Tam for what it’s worth  :-)   

. This discount malarkey is a
folly. Regardless whether it is an early bird or not, remember we all
operate over a smaller MCA / TSA 
. and most of the customers, donors,
sponsors know each other, if someone is getting it cheaper than someone else
then you are heading for trouble. Throwing in a few extras    re:- on-air
for early bird is a better approach 

. Ie :- a set of random adverts at
early brekky or late night. Everybody needs to be on the same rate really
and then you have a steady Ship from the outset. 

Obviously, I can’t set your rate for you as I don’t know what your worth
oh blast    I’ve said that word again      Laugh out Loud indeed

All the best

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 Tam Curry
Sent: 03 February 2015 12:49
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Spot Rate

Hi all,

I've been paying particular attention to this thread as we've now come up
with our first rate card ahead of our launch on 19th March and I'm starting
to question whether we should be offering our 50% discount for early bird
customers!

I certainly don't want to de-value our service - do you think it best to
keep the discount idea on the back burner for now and see how it goes?

Obviously we don't yet have the benefit of approximate listener numbers
although we do intend on referring to our RSL listener figures - purely from
folk accessing our web service which are exact, although potentially
misleading as we wouldn't account for length of listening time.

Our aim is to rope in 8 - 16 advertisers prior to launch, which I hope will
potentially attract more interest in the service. At the very least it gives
our advertising chap something quite real to refer to when doing the
rounds..

Cheers

Tam

On 3 February 2015 at 11:35, Paul Golder <paul at pvg.co.uk> wrote:

When I was running RLSs with The Phoenix (as it was known then) and
Mayflower FM (if anyone remembers that!) back in 1995-1996 I was charging a
basic package of £250 a month for spot ads.

And I still am! (Although everything is yearly and negotiated up or down
from there).

According to various websites, 20 years of inflation is about 73% so £250
then is worth £434 today.

On 3 February 2015 at 11:11, Tony Bailey <ravensound at pilgrimsound.co.uk>
wrote:

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 pricing <http://www.theradiopeople.co.uk/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 <tel:07973%20710963> 

@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

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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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