You are here: Home / TV and Radio

Top 10 Web Revenue Mistakes of TV & Radio

August 25, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

TV gets 10% of local online ad spends. Radio gets less than 2%. Newspaper shares are in decline. Compare these lowly numbers to online-only companies like Patch, Reach Local, and Google that are now getting over 50% of local ad budgets. Anybody in local media think that’s a problem that needs a little fixing? For sure, we bet the investment folks at Angelo Gordon and Oaktree Capital are getting a little un-easy about this issue.

All is not lost. Even though the local competition continues to grow stronger, Broadcasters (and Newspaper) can still get back in the game, and significantly grow their web revenue share.

The solution is simple and indisputable: address and remedy the common web sales errors committed by most local media properties. The list below captures and identifies what we refer to as: the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.

1.  Management, owners & CEO’s lack specialized Web training

• How can you manage what you don’t fully understand?

• Expensive research and consultants are not enough.

• Delegating all sales strategy to content focused VP Interactive, is risky without knowledgeable oversight.

2.  Dangerous thinking: ‘selling Web cannibalizes Broadcast sales’

• Your clients are moving more dollars online. They’ll buy from you, or someone else.

• Web revenue, though still relatively small, is the fastest growing, local revenue stream.

• It’s best to grow overall revenue share by smartly leveraging your traditional and digital assets.

3.  Limited or in-effective Web training of sales reps

• How can they sell new products without seasoned direction & regular training?

• Is your staff taught by qualified trainers or by the station ‘web-geek’ ?  Is your staff  forced to endure tech-heavy theory & classroom lecture, or are they getting real world training ? Broadcasters need to look OUTSIDE of their industry for fresh and seasoned perspective on Web sales.

4.  Management structure conflicts

• Web managers typically report to broadcast managers (who’s comp package favors spot sales).

• Programming/News departments are the primary operators of most websites, including where and how advertising is placed. Would you ever allow the PD or News Director determine your on-air spot load? Then why do we allow them to determine online units and placements on our websites?

• Like your station, your website must ultimately be run by those with ‘profit & revenue first’ goals.

5.  Poor attention to fast changing, online environment

• Advertisers are learning how to go directly to consumers via digital.

• Newspaper, Cable & Directories are stepping up their game.

• New competitors like Patch and Reach Local are even more of a threat.

6.  Setting Web budgets too low

• Allows sales reps to quickly hit web goals, then immediately stop selling web. Money is then left on the table, and gives the false impression of successful web selling. Making matters worse, this encourages local web spends to be redirected to online-only companies.

7.  Poor inventory & yield management

• Over reliance on Google AD Sense and remnant networks.

• In-effective ad placement.

• Limited & non-use of premium, high value units.

• Inability to quickly price based on supply & demand

8.  Confusing media kits, sales packages & pricing

• Local business owners prefer simple offers, delivered in Broadcast friendly vocabulary. They’re usually not sure of the value of 1 or even 10  million page-views. Excel spreadsheets with ad units, cpm’s and other confusing data only frustrates the advertiser. It also freaks out the sales rep who’s trying to clearly explain the features & benefits of a cross-platform marketing program.

9.  Director of Interactive; tech & content background only?

• Lots of eyeballs and slick websites do not equal revenue & profit.

• Is Director of Interactive, or your web manager, qualified to implement a realistic revenue strategy?

10.  Over-reliance on vendors & research for sales strategy

• Just because I just  built you a kitchen & gave you a cookbook, doesn’t mean you’re now a chef.

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, Hyperlocal Networks, TV and Radio Tagged With: , , , ,

Radio vs Patch, Groupon, Hyper local

August 11, 2010 By admin 1 Comment

patchCan Radio win against Patch, Reach Local, Groupon and Hyper-local competitors? Click below to view the training presentation given to 200 Radio broadcasters on August 10. In this session, we revealed how these competitors went to market, how Radio can effectively compete against them, while increasing Radio’s overall revenue share.

Radio’s NEW Online Competition 8.2010

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, TV and Radio

Can Radio Beat New Web Competitors?

August 3, 2010 By admin 2 Comments

Can Radio compete against Patch, Reach Local, Pandora, Groupon? Are your reps & managers familiar with these online companies?

On August 10 @ 3p et, we team up with Marketron to expose the new competitors, and share tactics that will help Radio defend against, and beat these new players.

This session will help Radio close more Web deals, and increase it’s overall revenue share.

This free webinar is NOT focused on pie-in-the-sky theory and research. Instead, you’ll get fact-based and proven instruction on how to position your station to win more Internet deals and grow overall revenue share.

Your team will easily overcome these NEW, client objections:           

  • We rank high in Google, we don’t need you.
  • We’re going to try Groupon and Foursquare.
  • Radio / Cable / Newspaper is enough.
  • Newspaper site has more page-views than you.
  • How much web traffic can you send me?
  • I’ve tried web before, but didn’t see any results

Click here to register for free Webinar. Space is limited.

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, TV and Radio Tagged With:

Mel Taylor; On-Air TV & Radio Clips

July 23, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Samples of my past TV and Radio work.

  • Interviewing Gene Simmons of Kiss. 1996 WYSP Radio
  • On-air Radio samples. Alice 104.5, Q-102 and WPST
  • Interviewing Howard Stern. 1997 WYSP Radio
  • Interviewing Dead Milkmen, WPST Radio
  • Fox 29 TV
  • Live & recorded TV reports. CBS-3 TV 1998
  • VJ hosting work: MTV 1987
  • On-air video from WPST Radio
  • I videotaped by job interview at WMMR
  • Bothering John Debella in the studio at WYSP

Filed Under: Classic Mel Taylor Video, TV and Radio

Gannett Web Fumble, Punts to DataSphere

June 15, 2010 By admin

gannett logoGannett Broadcasting is putting some of their local  web sales on auto pilot. The media titan announced they’ll join Raycom, LocalTV LLC and other digitally frustrated media properties in outsourcing some web efforts. No surprise, they’re punting to DataSphere; the master of call-center web sales and quickie blogs. Was this surrender by local media predicted many years ago? Yup.

Back in 2003, the local media analysts at Borrell Associates republished a report about the Disruption of Local Media. The study was conducted with Clark Gilbert, a protege of Harvard Prof. Clayton Christensen, author of business best seller; Innovator’s Dilemma. (a must read on how incumbent companies, run by really smart managers, are unable to build new businesses while focusing on core customers) Read Chapter 1 of Innnovator’s Dilemma here. The report tried to answer the question that was a recurring theme in the book:

Can local media tackle the Internet with existing management, content and sales personnel?                     

The answer was no back then. Seems like that answer still stands today. Historical analogies suggest, that traditional media will try to win on web, but will ultimately fail.

Despite smart management and a high degree of awareness, no company – including newspapers armed with this knowledge – has been able to achieve new net gain by tackling a disruptive technology with an integrated management approach. Traditional managers tend to disbelieve the implications of what is happening to their own industry.

So let me get this straight…..

  • If the TV GM and/or news director is responsible for the TV station website, it will fail.
  • If the Radio PD, GM or Marketing director is responsible for the Radio website, it will fail.
  • If the Newspaper publisher or news editor, is responsible for the Newspaper site, it will fail.

The key take-away from this 7 year old report?  As long as a traditional media manager is calling the shots at the local media website, it will most certainly fail. Whoa.

Solution? Separate general management, sales, programming, editorial……separate everything. Build a business that can, and should attack the mother ship. Not following this path of action will allow pure-plays like Patch, ReachLocal and DataSphere, to make serious inroads into the local marketplace, in what once was the wholly owned domain of mainstream media.

Other online-only and hyper-local business models to watch: Hyper-Local Incubators, The Batavian, Philebrity, NewzJunky, WestSeattleBlog, SacramentoPress.com, MainStreet Connect, BrooklynBugle.com, and Nashville24.7

 

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, TV and Radio Tagged With: , ,

Radio Websites, a Hyper Local Opportunity?

May 30, 2010 By admin

Warning: If you have responsibility of managing the station website and you think web sales is un-appealing, or just not worth the time and effort……you may not want the big boss to read this!

Can Radio get into the hyper-local, and online news business? That all depends if they run their online assets as a business, rather than a hobby. Can they move from old school tactics like mascots and remotes, to offering local business owners a portfolio of online solutions they are clamoring for?

Radio remote, cat country, atlantic city

What's Better for Radio; Silly Remotes or Web ?

Radio purists, Broadcast vets, Wall Street and even hardcore music geeks agree on one simple fact: without profit to pay the bills, there’s no programming excellence. So when it comes to the Radio station website and the hyper local opportunities it provides, why aren’t they run in the same financially disciplined way?

When a Radio GM wakes up each morning, what’s likely on their mind? What new Lady Gaga song should be added to the playlist? A morning show bit to post on the station site? While these play a role in the overall success of a station, it’s really not the stuff that keeps the GM up at night. Rather, it’s the sales and profitability issue that makes them toss and turn.

For Radio’s digital initiatives to dramatically drive more cash to the bottom line, they simply need to be operated under the same strict financial, programming and operational pressures of their on-air brethren. It’s really that simple, and there’s no two ways about it.

TIP  #1: Web-training for upper management: Understanding new competition, compensation/hiring issues, rate card, forecasting/inventory yield management, overcoming common objections, managers lead by example (not from behind desk), leverage web to increase overall Radio share, take share from TV, Newspaper, and direct marketing budgets.

TIP  #2: Beware of web sales trainers that haven’t sold web in years. Would you ever hire an overweight, personal trainer to get in shape? Are you following consultants that sound really smart, ‘wow’ you with gee-wiz technology and talk of ‘extending your brand’ online? Ask them to help you craft a pitch, overcome some objections and close a deal. See how they do with that one.

TIP  #3: While research, analysis and classroom lecture is helpful, you need to put money on the books NOW. Be wary of those who will have you believe that expensive data & training will lead you to web profits. The smartest ideas & concepts are worthless, until they are successfully implemented in the field.

Internet business 101 for programming & marketing. When PD’s, DJ’s, marketing execs, & webmasters understand basic online sales models, they create more advertiser-friendly digital opportunities, while developing greater loyalty with listeners. Just as sellers are trained, these non-sales departments need to also be well-versed in digital media & online revenue models. Programming knows how we make money with on-air, now they need the same understanding of our online revenue strategy.

Let me tread here cautiously, since as a former on-air and programming guy, I understand that I could ruffle a few feathers with the following. There’s too much, inherent risk when programming and marketing departments have virtual free reign in managing the online effort. Understandably and with all due respect, sales and revenue isn’t the top priority at this point, for Radio’s creative crew. Their job is all about audience, and they execute on this with great skill. That being said……just as a GM wouldn’t allow DJ talent to pick their own music, or allow the PD to push all the stop sets till after midnight, the GM needs to ensure that business-focused web rules and standards are properly set and adhered to.

TIP: Provide non-sellers with relevant background and regular training in how local businesses are spending their web dollars, the emerging online competition to Radio, and what issues the station sales reps are encountering in the field.

Manage your online inventory like on-air Nobody sells your product & audience better than your own team. Like on-air, local and direct selling of web is preferred over allowing outside middlemen to re-sell or commoditize your unsold inventory. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, TV and Radio Tagged With: , , ,

DataSphere Smart. Local Media; Not So Much

May 27, 2010 By admin 3 Comments

Gotta hand it to the fast growing DataSphere. The online solutions vendor recently closed deals with LocalTV LLC, Raycom and others. Could their offerings threaten WorldNow, Triton, and Emmis Interactive? Better yet, could their business model even hurt the local media partners they’re teaming up with? 

Recently funded by Fisher Communications, DataSphere clearly saw local media still struggling with turning a web profit. (even after all these years)

Combine that with viewers and advertisers losing interest in typical local news sites, and ever lower cpm’s….. general managers everywhere are scrambling to keep corporate off their a** and to quickly accomplish the following:

  • Have a half-decent website at the lowest possible cost
  • Populate it with news, content & info, at the lowest possible cost
  • Hit their new, mandatory web budget at the lowest possible cost
  • Get it all done while not screwing up the primary business

DataSphere to the rescue. Here’s the deal: We’ll turn on a whole bunch of ez-to-operate neighborhood blogs for ya, then have our call centers auto-dial the local businesses in your town, close lot’s of deals, rinse, repeat. How’s that sound? Oh, we almost forgot. We’ll take a ridiculously high percentage of the deal and we’ll have a primary contact with the client too. But hey, just sit there and promote it. No need to lift a finger. Cool?

DataSphere Technologies, Inc. (http://www.DataSphere.com) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) Web technology and hyper-local ad sales company focused on generating online profits for media companies. DataSphere offers a range of turnkey solutions to rapidly improve site monetization and experience with minimal investment of time and money

I like that last line; “minimal investment of time and money”

As a local media manager, you’ll love how this easily puts web revenue on the books. But in reality, you did a deal with the devil. You just handed over the most valuable part of your business (realtionship with local advertiser) to an outside technology company/middle man.

Just for kicks, ask the Newspaper publisher in town how that deal with Yahoo has been working out for them.

Filed Under: Hyper Revenue Watch, TV and Radio Tagged With: , , , , ,

How Can Radio Win Online ?

April 17, 2010 By admin

wall_street.jpgRadio is being pressured by Wall Street to build online revenue. You read it in the Wall Street Journal and the industry trades.

With that in mind….Newspaper websites have been seriously cranking along for almost 15 years now, TV for about 5.

What can Radio do to catch up, get into the local online battle, and grow their revenue share?

I recently spoke with a well respected, veteran Radio manager. They asked me if I knew of anybody that might be a good web seller for their cluster. I wondered if they thought all they had to do was hire a “web seller”, and their Internet business would grow nicely from there.

I felt like I angered them when I replied: “any experienced web seller will be expensive or tough to hire. The good ones are already making excellent $, working for a dot com or other web property. Plus, they might be wary of taking a sales job in an industry that’s scrambling to catch up. Maybe you should train your current staff first…..while you continue to look for a stand-out web seller?”

Additional thoughts about this very common question.

  • Taking it slow: not an option. That Newspaper and TV station across the street, along with online-only sites, are taking online share from you right now. They’re using their websites to accomplish that via podcasts, niche content, streaming audio channels, video, etc.. In addition, Google, Reach Local and others are using cheap technology, and old fashioned sales pressure, to steal advertisers from right under your nose.
  • Understand that Web assets are first and foremost, business assets. While it may not generate  the same revenue as terrestrial, it IS the fastest growing segment of the marketing/entertainment/news world. Having your webmaster or marketing person ‘handle’ the web, is not enough. Hire web pros, develop a plan, and train your current staff……now.
  • Learn from the success/failures of TV, Newspapers, and other pure-play Web companies. These competitors currently have more Web experience under their belt. Apply lessons learned from them, and save ALOT of time and money.
  • Clean up and invest in your websites. Most Radio sites are cluttered, difficult to navigate, shallow, and often act as a ‘dumping ground’ for programming/marketing/sales initiatives. Check your stats and remove anything that gets insignificant/useless traffic. Then, develop a plan that caters to your web savvy listeners, or fills an un-tapped niche in your market. Use your station to drive awareness and traffic to that site/idea.
  • Leverage your close relationships with media buyers/planners; Broadcast reps will always have a shot to pitch interactive or cross platform programs, they already have a built-in trust and familiarity with the buyer. Then leverage your broadcast transmitter and signal. Realize the value to promote a client’s online destination, or a promotion housed within your station site. Radio has it’s very own megaphone on steroids; the transmitter. The dot com pure-plays don’t have this luxury.
  • Catch up on Internet marketing and Web 2.0 trends. Hire a trainer/specialist, or poach a Web professional from Print, TV or a dot.com. You’ll have a much better chance of getting on the Web buy, or snagging some nice, incremental revenue. Ex: If you are primarily a spot seller, you can no longer just rely on bringing the “WEB GUY” to the meeting.  If your in programming/marketing, you’ll build deeper relationships with your listeners, and will drive much more ‘engaged’ traffic to your site.
Filed Under: TV and Radio

Can Radio Build Hyper Local Web Business?

December 21, 2009 By admin

train-wreck-1.jpg

Ever taken a really good look at some Radio station websites? Aside from the layout and content, (some harshly call them a train-wreck) have you ever wondered how Radio can build a hyper-local business, and drive Internet revenue from these efforts?

Radio managers are knee-deep in these issues right now.

The pressure is on. While Radio’s primary revenue stream of selling spots has become much more challenging, there is an upside. Radio has the best of both worlds; on-air and online.

And it’s not just about selling banners and streaming spots. More importantly: Radio has ability to leverage it’s digital assets, to go after more of their client’s overall budgets. THAT’s a key distinction that separates the winners from the losers.

How can Radio seriously get into hyper-local game? First, it must admit that they need more outside help. Today, there are still too few people inside of the industry that have a handle on the fast changing digital landscape. Research, cool aps, and streaming will not be enough to get it done. And just relying on the local sales managers, or the GM’s to develop a strong web plan will only delay the pain of making a serious investment in hiring and re-training. Finding web-sales experts to help Radio will not be easy, but it will be necessary.

Filed Under: TV and Radio Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pandora takes Beer Money from Radio

December 7, 2009 By admin

Pandora eating Radio’s lunch? 

Pandora internet radioPandora  is the leading online music site with a serious buzz….and major advertiser support from Planters, The History Channel and many others. Recently, Pandora threw a party at a local Philly hotspot. It was sponsored by Budweiser. Yes, the King of Beers re-allocated a nice chunk of their Philly marketing budget, and gave it to Pandora. They even had one of their online personalities (Kevin Seal) host the gig, and give away prizes. Sounds like a Radio appearance….right?  

As a former DJ who has done his share of club appearances, I was blown away by the FREE BEER, tons of T-shirts, and other give-aways that Pandora and Budweiser provided. By comparison, more and more Radio club appearances consist of a ‘street team’; low paid interns that put up plastic banners, and hand out a t-shirt or two. Maybe. 

Philly2niteMost beer marketing dollars used to go to Radio…..but this club event was solid proof that major sponsors looking to reach 20 somethings, are ramping up their LOCAL online spends. More of these budgets are being targetted to independent music/entertainment sites like Philly2Nite,……not terrestrial Radio. 

Can Radio step up and build online platforms that can attract these dollars ? The answer is YES if they take more dramatic steps to hire for, train for, and invest in these types of online efforts. Simply re-purposing content and firing up the sales troops will not be enough. Can Radio managers handle this challenge?

Filed Under: TV and Radio
« Older Posts