Re: WLNG-FM (was WCBS-FM 101.1..)

["Pete Ferrand" <pete@vermontel.net>]

Rick Kelly wrote:
- ---->Not necessarily so.  Many radio stations have great billing figures and
>zero audience.  If you have a good sales force, they can sell anything.
>This has been proven time and time again.  In small markets, it's still
>possible.

In small markets, each advertiser is acutely aware of whether the
advertisement is bringing customers into the store. The owners of these
little businesses know their customers and hear from them about the ads. And
the ads are a major expense for the business. If the ads aren't effective
the sales force can't sell for long. I've got one car salesman on my program
who tells me every time he does an ad "I got three calls from my ad on your
show yesterday," and so on.

The opposite case is the more common - where the ads are working but the
proprietor has no way to be sure of that and stops advertising. Some
stations have demos and positioning that brings in customers who don't
mention the ad. The traditional sales-driven small market formats bring in
older, long-term townies who do.

Now in a lot of cases a small market station can sound terrible by radio and
aesthetic standards and still bring in customers, especially since
demographics are usually ignored.

No one is in a non-competitive situation today what with the proliferation
of weeklies, shoppers, place mats, cable-tv, and whatnot.

- -Pete

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