Re: Ad Rates

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@erols.com>]

> are Saturdays, especially saturday afternoons, the
> the lowest revenue-raisers for stations?

Generally, (and I am no expert on this!!) spots that run at that time
of the week (not in a special event like the Met) are slotted within a
category of spots that "run" randomly throughout the day/week (ROS).
Of course, there are tons of proprietary methods of "trafficing"
spots.  The ad rate for such a run is generally the lowest on the
card.  Stations can be as creative as they want to be with their time,
e.g., "overnights" "overnights and weekends" so that less affluent
sponsors can get a piece of the pie (or you can get a piece of
theirs!)  Sponsorships of special events like the Met, sports, etc.,
generally carry spots sold exclusively for that event, and tend to
carry a higher spot rate.  Generally, a sponsor will buy a series of
spots for a "season" of broadcasts; along with the actual spots, they
may also get billboard mentions, promotional thanks elsewhere on the
station, logos in print ads, co-ops, etc.  Then there's premium priced
fixed position spots (run at certain times in the hour like an
adjacency) and service sponsorships (newscast, weather report, etc.)

Question:  A good friend of yours owns a small business, couple of car
washes, etc.  Not savvy to radio buys.  Says he has maybe $8Gs to
spend all year on spots at the local station and you volunteer to
'broker' his hard earned money for him on his behalf.  How would you
suggest he spread out his spots on that station?  (Simply talking him
out of it, go cable, go print, bbs, www, could also be valid answers!)
Curious.

Bill O'Neill

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