From the Corner Office

I've recently been involved in discussions with the Radio Advertising Bureau and other industry leaders on the issue of posting.  The short definition of posting is a comparison of what advertising was ordered and promised against the actual delivery of advertising and audience.

Frankly, in 2008, the radio industry doesn’t have the option of resisting posting.  It's another word for accountability, and the advertising and marketing world is being rocked by an ongoing demand for accountability.  The evidence closest to home that I can point to is our company's own demand for accountability from other media when we market our stations.  We regularly demand specific comparisons from television stations, outdoor companies and other marketing companies we employ.  It's only smart business to do so.

And it's only smart business for the radio industry, once and for all, to get ahead of the curve on accountability.  As we experience another year of uneven demand for our products, especially at the national and agency levels, we need to examine some of the causes for this state of affairs.  

For the past decade, we've resisted the change to electronic measurement, citing costs, methodologies, and other sometimes valid concerns.  No matter what our misgivings, we need to approach electronic measurement as the given of the equation, and our concerns as obstacles to be quickly and cooperatively overcome. The sooner we can get it right, including MRC accreditation and education on the buying and selling of radio in the People Meter world, the better.

We also need to become more user-friendly for our buyers.  We need to speed up our order taking, make as much use of electronic entry and invoicing as we can, and get those results back to our clients as quickly as other media are doing.   The internet is giving customers real-time, online access to their media buy as it is executed, with online ability to change, tweak or rework a buy that is not performing.

But before we address the external imperatives for posting, we must address our selling and pricing practices.  Our first and foremost customer service objective has to be to run the schedule as ordered by the client.  But internally, we also have to deal with the elephant in the room:  inventory management.  I’ve been talking to sales managers all around the country and keep hearing the same thing:  “all of my competitors are in ‘dive mode,’ racing to the bottom for a couple of share points.”  In the face of adversity, we continue to add more inventory.  Rate integrity and value selling no longer exist.  Fire sales, packaging, no charges, two-for-one pricing and the infamous value-added not only prevent transparency with our buyers.   They also undervalue our product and devalue our audience and the brands we have worked so hard to build. 

Everyone seems to have forgotten that we’re not just competing with other radio broadcasters for share.  We’re competing with television and the internet for the almighty advertising dollar.  Posting, PPM, Radio 2020 and all the other initiatives our industry is working on, as important as they are, are meaningless until we start selling radio for what it’s worth.  Until we do that, we will continue to fall short of our objectives. 

If we sell radio properly, at a fair price to both parties that accurately reflects the value of our audience, we have nothing to fear from posting.  We are ready to stand accountable for our part of the transaction and when we get a reliable electronic measurement system, we will be held to that audience delivery. 

The RAB, under Jeff Haley’s guidance, is working with the buying community to determine accepted standards for posting.  How we sell, what we sell, how we run the order, and how we make good on the delivery and against what ratings criteria....all of these are deal points that need negotiation in order for the post to be valid to both parties. 

We, as an industry, must begin that conversation now, and it must include buyers, sellers, planners, and Arbitron.  The opportunity is nothing short of repositioning our medium in the minds of our biggest buyers to one of effective, targeted, accountable engagement with prime audience targets.   We cannot afford to let that opportunity pass us by.  We have to get to work.

Please feel free to e-mail me by clicking on the "Ask Peter" icon posted below. I would love to hear your feedback or answer any questions you may have.