I agree, Jon sounds like a guy who obviously knows and loves radio.  Unlike the foolish executive from Bell Media who said that radio was no longer viable.  Jon was ticked off about that and I loved when he said that some of the Bell stations may not have enough sales people!  
 
Bell might have spent too much time fussing with national sales.  Local advertising makes up the vast majority of the revenue for smaller and medium sized stations. For that you need sales reps that visit the customer face to face and build a relationship. Good sales people can be difficult to find, and it's important for a company to keep them.  I wonder if Bell made the effort?  

Last edited by paterson1 (February 12, 2024 8:44 pm)

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Bell may have spent too much time fussing with national sales.  Local advertising makes up the vast majority of the revenue for smaller and medium sized stations. For that you need sales reps that visit the customer face to face and build a relationship. Good sales people can be difficult to find, and it's important for a company to keep them.  I wonder if Bell made the effort?  

Yes. Bell medium market stations, at least the markets I'm familiar with, have a good mix of veteran reps with long-standing relationships and young go-getters. Same with Rogers and Corus.

So, I don't think it's helpful to shout "shoot the puck" from the rafters like maybe they hadn't considered that.

The issue with local is, 4 years ago this month, 95% of it went away, and nowhere close to that has returned. Overall advertising revenues are still around 70% of pre-2020 levels, and the traditional local advertiser is faring worse.
Local retail is barely making payroll, let alone pay for marketing. Jack Astor's and Wal-Mart made it out just fine though.

 

Maybe but various reports have stated that retail sales came back to pre-covid levels in 2022.  Retail has been mostly up since then.  So the issue is not really that the business isn't there but that retailers are advertising (or not) in other ways, or simply still playing catch up after covid.  From TD..https://economics.td.com/ca-consumer-spending#:~:text=After%20a%20noticeable%20stall%20in,by%20concerns%20about%20price%20pressures.

Traditionally total radio revenue in Canada has always been more local than national and this is the time for stations to work hard at relationship selling with local advertisers and expand to that large second tier of regional advertiser and business that broadcasters often don't explore but should.  I know you don't think the money is there and we have talked about this before but co-op advertising is often overlooked and not utilized by radio. 

Please.  This is what you are paid to do.  I'm retired remember??

RadioAaron wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Please.  This is what you are paid to do.  I'm retired remember??

And somehow still current on the way things actually work today!
 

Absolutely, because some things regarding radio have never changed.  Some of the conglomerates and maybe you forgot that. 

Of course you matter..I only drag you through the mud..

Yeah, yeah. Everything anyone at Bell does is bad, and the company that VTs mornings in Peterborough is going to fix it.

RadioAaron wrote:

Yeah, yeah. Everything anyone at Bell does is bad, and the company that VTs mornings in Peterborough is going to fix it.

RadioAaron

I'm not sure your point is?   Radio stations across the planet use VTs.  Some VT the news and the announcers are live.  It this case we do the reverse. Not because I like it.  Not because you don't like it.  We do it because the audience prioritizes news first.  The minute they tell me something else - I will do that.   It's really that simple.  My friend you are over thinking it.

BTW - We're not trying to fix anything - nothing in our company is broken.  Our staff have secure jobs.  We're serving our communities.   We're having fun.   We're growing.

I appreciate your passion for radio.

Jon Pole's MyFM company has won a Keystone Award, which honours "job creating business owners." There's no doubt he's done that in the local communities where his stations are, and from his previous input here, it sounds like he's more about doing great radio than simply worrying about huge profits.

So congrats to him and his people for bucking the current trend in broadcasting!

My Broadcasting Corporation has won a Keystone Award for Job Creation