I'm not going to get into too much detail about Air America Radio as a network. From the get-go, I've thought the way they were attempting it was wrong on about 5 different levels..management, programming, you name it. But that's not the reason I'm doing this diary. I'm doing it because I want to give another insight into how to save progressive radio in your town. You have got to find advertisers. It really is that plain and simple. Reading about the way the folks in Madison are working to save progressive radio there makes me happy because they’re fantastically organized and they’re doing it the most effective way possible.
There is only one reason why a station will flip a progressive/liberal talk station, and that reason is MONEY. Yes, listeners drive ratings, which makes the station more palatable to agency media buyers. Agencies don’t look at formats. They look at ratings. That’s it. What station(s) will deliver their target demo? That’s all the agency cares about. Local advertisers are a different case. They go by ratings, yes, but it’s also about a personal validation or endorsement of a particular station. Both local advertisers and agency/national advertisers want the most listeners they can hit and they want them at the lowest price possible. This makes progressive talk a potential bargain. The trouble is, at many station clusters these days, there’s often more than one talk station in the cluster. As many of you likely know, a typical tactic for businesses who rely on salespeople is to give the newbies the hardest product to sell. They figure if the newbies can make it selling an unproven/unpopular product, they can make it as a salesperson. So...since progressive radio is such a new format, the newest of the new salespeople are often the ones selling it, and if they’re good, they’re going to wind up on one of the top-billing stations before too long. While they’re new, they don’t have the experience to really use the format to their advantage. Also, since progressive radio is so new, and since it’s such a niche format, it’s not going to be an easy sell. The comparatively low ratings also mean that even if a salesperson busts ass, they’re not going to make a whole lot of money, because the station can’t charge high rates. What business would pay exorbitant rates for a low-rated or unknown station? Think of it this way...there’s a reason why an LCD flat screen HDTV from Olevia costs a hell of a lot less than one from Sony/Polaroid.
I’ve done diaries in the past (at least a year or two ago) that explained the inner workings of radio...so feel free to go back and read those. I’ve got over 13 years experience in radio, I’ve been on-air, I’ve been a producer, I’ve written and produced commercials, and these days, my day is mixed more on the business side, with the occasional voicework. The only thing I haven’t done in radio is sell ads, but I’ve dealt with radio enough to know how it works, and I’ve dealt with enough salespeople to know how they think and why they do what they do. I’ve worked for both big radio giants and small Mom-and-Pop owned stations, but really, they’re all the same. It’s not an insidious plot to keep progressive radio underground, and it’s not personal. It’s just about money. Make a progressive station worth keeping and it’ll stay around. A station (even a somewhat low-powered AM) in a top 50 market is worth millions and was probably overpriced when it was purchased. Make progressive radio profitable, and it stays. If it's not profitable, the format wheel spins again. It's really that simple.