[cma-l] final e-mail

[Alex Gray, Two Lochs Radio]

Nick

In Scotland, small stations like us get similar Scottish Government 'public
service' adverts, and they are valued bookings, but we have never been able
to persuade CoI/UK government to book with us (actually about 12 years ago
Inland Revenue did for a couple of years, but then stopped).

Essentially the client (government) has to instruct the advertising buyers
to use the small independents/community stations or they won't do it. It's
purely a commercial business thing - if the client says to an agency "we
want you to cover at least 80% of the population with this ad", and the
agency can do that by two emails, one to each of the big national groups,
then they are going to do that. They collect the same 15% commission for two
master bookings with a standard carve-up within the groups, rather than
having to deal with dozens of small stations for no greater income.

We had to do a lot of hard work to get the routine placement of SG bookings
with the small community-based independent stations. We lobbied the First
Minister, then did a trial with market research, and I worked out a system
whereby the advertising bookers could place one booking that would then be
divided on a routine basis with a standard rate-share between all the
stations to make it as easy as possible for the bookers. That system has run
for 9 years now, and proved invaluable.

You are quite right about the demographics. A key point we made to
government was that the very nature of most of the adverts they run (health,
social, consumer, community) are seeking to reach just the people likely to
be listening in small/remote/minority/elderly communities listening to
community-based stations, and that they had a duty to make sure their
messages were going out on these stations, especially where there were no
other commercial stations in the area. The Scottish Government accepted
this, and everything flowed from that.

Alex

PS resident ranter, or court jester? The latter used to perform a very
valuable function at court!

-----Original Message-----
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 September 2015 16:25
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
<cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Subject: [cma-l] final e-mail

Final one chaps

Quick question :-

I was out of the area the other day heading up towards Grimsby and I was
flicking around the channels ... I heard a trailer for '''Pensions advice'''
on various commercial Stations. Would this have been a Government trailer ??
I reckon it was ?

Do any of our guys carry these ?   if so, who did you talk to ?     I would
argue that a Pension advice stint on a Community Station would be equally
beneficial if not MORE beneficial .... for example, our older demographic
would be more suited to the advice.


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