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Big Spend Gives Dollar Shave A Winning Edge. Much the way Weather Tech made itself the go-to brand name for car mats—thanks to ubiquitous radio advertising—Dollar Shave Club is now parading No. 2 razor cartridge ranking, behind perpetual leader Schick. After only three years in business, and with an assist from radio, the online vendor reports its July volume reached 2.2 million, surpassing the cartridge customer share of Gillette, according to AdAge. Dollar Shave Club launched a major national TV ad push in November with its slapstick-branded ads, after its launch via an online video that went viral. AdAge reports July online sales of $16.3 million, more than double the $7.7 million recorded in October, before the ad campaign began, and nearly triple the club’s sales a year ago. The brand is also a fan of radio. Among its successes are a series of 2013 Father’s Day ads starring CEO Michael Dubin. He told Adweek then that, “local radio has played a huge role in growing [our] customer base.” Dollar Shave Club remains an unabashed radio user. The company ran a total of 8,209 spots on radio stations tracked by Media Monitors from Aug. 1- Sept 8. Among the male-targeted formats on the buy are sports, classic rock, alternative and news/talk. More than 25 stations aired at least 100 spots during this period, including sports talkers such as iHeartMedia’s KGME, Phoenix (910); Alpha Media’s “750AM The Game” KXTG, Portland; Pike`s Peak Trust sports KKFN, Denver (104.3); and Total Austin Sports Radio’s “The Horn 104.9 FM” KTXX-FM, Austin. The brand exponentially boosted its ad spend in 2015. According to Kantar Media, Dollar Shave Club shelled out more on total media advertising in the first quarter ($10.76 million) than in all of 2014 ($6.78 million).
Diversity Key In FCC’s AM Filing Issue. Lawmakers are joining the growing chorus calling on the Federal Communications Commission to open a special FM translator filing window exclusively for AM broadcasters. A dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including all five members of its leadership, have signed a letter to FCC chair Tom Wheeler in support of an AM-only filing window. Calling AM radio “the most diverse communications service in America,” the Sept. 2 letter calls the legacy radio band “a crucial outlet for African-American listeners to access the information and entertainment that is most relevant to their communities.” The letter enumerates the tough economics and technical challenges AM operators face. As the Commission prepares to release the details of its long-awaited AM revitalization initiative, the CBC says it’s concerned that the agency may “reverse course” on an AM-only application window, which it calls the “most promising” way to breathe new life into the band. FM translators enable clear reception and extended broadcast hours, the letter states, which have allowed some minority-owned stations “to attract more listeners and advertisers and improve their economic stability.” But translators are a scarce commodity and too few minority-owned broadcasters have the wherewithal to participate in the costly bidding wars that accompany their availability. An AM-only window “would provide every AM broadcaster an equal opportunity to obtain a translator” and lead to “a more diverse broadcasting system,” the lawmakers say. The letter from the CBC members follows a similar Aug. 31 letter from the CEOs of 50 minority-owned AM radio licensees and stations that was sent to the Commission. The National Association of Broadcasters issued a statement in support of the filing window, saying it would “strengthen the ability of minority-owned radio stations to expand their reach and provide new services to a wider audience.”
Pats Set For Even More Radio Ratings Yardage. The long ordeal over under-inflated footballs was credited with lifting listening to sports talk radio. But a federal court judge’s nullification of the National Football League’s four-game suspension of New
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England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady—just in time for the start of the 2015-16 season—gives the team’s radio partners something to cheer about. The reigning Super Bowl champs brought an average in-game share of 34.5 among men 25-54 to CBS Radio’s “98.5 The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM during the 2014-15 season, according to Nielsen data. That ranked the Patriots at No. 10 out of 30 NFL teams in audience share. It also dwarfed some of the team’s big rivals’ numbers in their own home demos—the Indianapolis Colts pulled a 6.9 share in the demo, the New York Jets attracted an 8.5 and the Miami Dolphins a 10.1. NFL ratings are mighty high in the diehard New England market, but the Patriots are a potent audience driver well beyond Boston. The Patriots Radio Network encompasses more than 40 stations across seven states. Having Brady back in the pocket for tomorrow night’s season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers creates powerful event programming for WBZ-FM and its affiliates. Patriots fans stretch from coast to coast, including more than just the folks who root for winners—during the 2014-15 season, the team was the league’s fourth-biggest TV draw, with an average 21.7 million viewers and a 12.9 household rating in its seven nationally televised games, according to AdAge. And the Patriots’ ratings performance in national TV games beat the average delivery for all 70 nationwide broadcasts by two full ratings points.
Travelers Prefer A Dip In Local Radio Waters. Vacationers actively search out radio stations in their destination towns, according to a new study from Kelly Music Research, which surveyed 500 individuals aged 15-54 about summer travel, station preferences and listening while on 2015 summer road trips. With an eye on markets that see significant summer upswings and downturns in population, the analysis found that while 79% prefer their hometown stations over those they find in business or vacation travels, a robust 63% of travelers do most of their listening to local radio stations in their destination cities. Only 8% said they preferred streaming hometown stations while away. “Even in this age of technology where users can stream their favorite hometown station anywhere in the world, many choose to enjoy the local market flavor, and that includes the local radio stations,” Kelly Music Research said. In addition, 23% of those surveyed say they utilize streaming audio services such as Pandora or Spotify on the road, while 6% play iPods, CDs or nothing at all. Other notable numbers—50% of respondents age 15-24 prefer streaming (11% stream hometown stations and 39% stream some another source); country listeners are most apt to listen to local radio stations when traveling (73%) and alt rock fans are most likely to stream (54%). Kelly points out that “unfortunately for radio stations in popular destination towns, travelers are not included in ratings. Based on our findings, if vacationers were included in listening surveys, stations in destination towns would likely see a noticeable spike in the summer months.” Competitive Info: Media General Adds Meredith. Media General, which owns or operates 71 television stations nationwide, reached a deal Tuesday to acquire Meredith Corp. for $2.4 billion in cash. Media General is also absorbing debt, making the total value of the deal $3.1 billion. The combined company will own 88 TV stations in 54 markets. The deal marks Media General’s return to the print business, after it sold most of its newspapers to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $142 million in 2012. Meredith, according to the Wall Street Journal, began as an agricultural publisher in 1902, and now publishes magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle and Eating Well. USA Today notes that live TV viewership has been shrinking; though the reasons are numerous and well documented, USA Today adds the business has lately been roiled by the growing trend of cord-cutting. Meredith’s magazine business faces a similar challenge as readers move from print to digital. Meredith CEO Stephen Lacy, who will run the combined company, said during a conference call Tuesday, “We have upside opportunity to really take the content from the Meredith side and aggressively monetize that into the...digital audience that Media General has built.” Lacy also signaled that Media General will pursue other opportunities for consolidation, including possibly acquiring other companies. But first, to secure regulatory approvals, the new company plans to shed stations in six markets through sales or swaps. Those markets are Portland, OR; Nashville, TN; Hartford-New Haven, CT; Greenville-Spartanburg, SC; Asheville, NC; Mobile/Pensacola, AL/FL; and Springfield, MA. Overall, the combined company will have about $3 billion in annual revenue and a workforce of 9,000 employees. But cuts seem likely—the companies said they expect $80 million in synergies within the first two years.
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Teamwork Could Help Newspapers Scoop Sales. Five of the nation’s largest newspapers are reportedly in talks about pooling their resources in a new effort to pitch national advertisers. Gannett, Advance Publications, Hearst, McClatchy Newspapers and Tribune would collaborate to form a new sales company that would give national advertisers the ability to target readers across 30 major markets, according to the New York Post. Using the code name NextGen, the new company would differ from earlier group sales efforts in the struggling newspaper industry, such as the MediaWorks Publisher Consortium and Newspaper National Network, which rely on separate national sales staffs. Instead the new sales firm would represent all five publishers to national advertisers, giving them a strength-in-numbers reach. “It is still early stages,” one source familiar with the talks told the Post. “Nobody has committed yet.” Such a move would likely lead to downsizings across the newspaper chains as they cut back on national sales staffs to reduce overlap. Tribune, owners of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, is reportedly leading the effort.
Broadcaster Adds Carolina To Its Community. Small market specialist Community Broadcasters is expanding beyond its New York State base and into South Carolina. The company has signed a deal to buy 12 stations, seven translators and three TV construction permits in Florence, Sumter and Orangeburg, SC. Owned by veteran operators Jim Leven and Bruce Mittman, the group currently owns 16 signals in Elmira/Corning, Olean, Ogdensburg and Watertown, NY. Now with one fell swoop, it is doubling its size, buying into three fast-growing South Carolina markets. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. Northwood Ventures, a Long Island, NY-based venture capital firm, provided the financing. Community Broadcasters began operating all of the stations under a time brokerage agreement on Tuesday. Mittman, who also owns Boston-based ad agency Mittcom, earlier spent a decade managing rock WAAF, Worcester-Boston. Leven is a longtime CEO of radio companies in central New York State. Miller Communications was founded in 2000 by Harold Miller, who will join Community Broadcasters in a management capacity. Leven and Mittman founded Community Broadcasters in 2006 with what Mittman says was a “vision to become the voice for the community, focusing on local news, sports and area events, and not just syndicated programming.” The Miller deal “furthers our strategic vision to grow a small-market radio group throughout the U.S.,” Leven said. In Florence, SC, Community Broadcasters buys “Kat Country 99.3” WWKT-FM, hot AC “Star 93.7” WSIM, rock “Bad Dog 94.7” WWBD, sports “ESPN 98.9” WOLH (1230), and the talk simulcast of “Live 95” WFRK/WHYM (95.3, 1260). In the Sumter, SC area it buys adult hits “Z-95” WIBZ, “News Talk 1240” WDXY, and R&B oldies “Old Skool 93.3” WWHM (1290). In the Orangeburg, SC area it buys “Cat Country 105.3” WGFG and R&B oldies “Old Skool 102.9” WQKI-FM. And in Kingstree, SC it buys sports “ESPN 98.9” WDKD (1310) which has a daytime signal that gets into Florence and Sumter.
Musical Chairs With Cumulus’ Salt Lake Formats. Skipping the Labor Day weekend rush, Cumulus Media waited until Tuesday to introduce a new classic hip-hop station in Salt Lake City. Its arrival came at the expense of the adult hits format and dispatched a two-year-old modern rocker to a new frequency. Modern rock KHTB is now found at 101.9, displacing adult hits “Trax 101.9” KENZ. Cumulus ditched “Trax” over the weekend and simulcast the “Alt” format on both frequencies. Rebranded as “Alt 101.9,” the modern rock station now airs on a 25,000-watt class C licensed to Ogden. Part two of the reshuffle happened Tuesday at 5pm when Cumulus launched the latest outlet for its growing “Vibe” brand. “94.9 The Vibe” bowed with wall-to-wall music on KHTB, a 48,000-watt class C licensed to Provo. Cumulus says the new station mixes old-school hip-hop hits with some R&B throwbacks from the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s, programmed by sister network Westwood One. Rick Vaughn, program director for Cumulus-Salt Lake City, says the new station fills an obvious market hole. “There is so much hip-hop and rhythmic music that just wasn’t getting played here,” he says.
FCC’s Failure To Communicate Continues. Dealmakers waiting to file applications to buy and sell radio stations have to wait a little bit longer to get their paperwork into the FCC. Though the commission took most of its resources offline at 6pm Eastern last Wednesday as part of large-scale IT upgrades, the goal of having everything back up by 8am yesterday wasn’t met. Moving more
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than 200 servers and transferring over 400 applications is taking longer than expected at the commission. In a Public Notice issued yesterday, the agency explained that most databases wouldn’t be up and running again until Thursday morning. “These efforts continued through the Labor Day weekend and are near completion,” the commission said Tuesday in a statement. “This move to a commercial service provider will help reduce the costs to maintain the systems, improve their resiliency and allow us to shift legacy applications to cloud solutions in the long term.” The Consolidated Database System (CDBS) used to file license transfers and upgrades isn’t expected to be back online until 8am Thursday, two days later than expected. The Commission is shooting to bring back most other databases by then, including the Universal Licensing System (ULS), the Equipment Authorization System (EAS), the Antenna Structure Registration System (ASR), the Fee Filer and a host of others. The good news? One major database is now available—the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). The Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS), expected to be back up by late Tuesday, still wasn’t online as of 10:30pm.
Triton Earns Big Programmatic Trust Vote. Nearly three years after launching pioneering programmatic ad product a2x, Triton Digital has reached an important milestone for the automated ad exchange for online radio advertising. Triton has been named to the list of advertising technology companies certified by the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s Inventory Quality Guidelines (IQG) 2.0 initiative for audio inventory transacted through the programmatic exchange. Triton says it’s the first company of its kind within the audio space to earn certification from the voluntary, self-regulatory program that supports the development of common standards in the digital advertising supply chain. Launched in January 2013, a2x allows advertisers to buy targeted online and mobile audio inventory in real time. In addition to completing an extensive training and self-audit, Triton commissioned Ernst & Young to independently validate its adherence to the IQG guidelines. The certification “is an important contributor to increasing both trust and demand within the advertising industry,” said Benjamin Masse, senior VP & GM, advertising at Triton Digital. Cumulus-Rdio Amplify Partnership. Cumulus Media partner Rdio is expanding its home entertainment presence, integrating with such multi-room speaker systems as Harman/Kardon, DTS Play-Fi, Denon and Google Cast for audio. Rdio is also prepping the launch of a customized Smart TV app for Hisense and LG-connected TVs. Last month, Cumulus amplified its partnership with Rdio, in which 460 of its radio stations are now streamed live on the global service. The partnership between radio’s third-largest company and the streaming audio company allows Rdio users to tag songs they hear on Cumulus stations as their favorites, share songs with friends and repeat recently played tracks. With its Tuesday announcement, Rdio increases its presence to connected speaker systems from Harman/Kardon, Denon, Google Cast for audio and the DTS Play-Fi Whole-Home Wireless ecosystem, featuring brands such as Definitive Technology, Phorus, Polk Audio and Wren. It is also now available on Samsung smart TVs and will soon launch on connected TVs from Hisense and LG. The subscription-based feature is already available on Roku, Amazon TV and Chromecast, offering access to more than 35 million songs.
Sioux Falls University Sells Its Station. It’s the end of an era for a decades-old Sioux Falls radio institution and a training ground for future broadcasters. In an effort to redirect dollars for an endowment fund, the University of Sioux Falls has sold its student-run adult alternative formatted KCFS (94.5). The outlet was purchased by Sioux Falls businessman Chuck Brennan, who intends to flip it to KBAD-FM as the market’s only full-time commercial rock station. The university will maintain the call letters and dedicate the station to online streaming of music and sporting events. It comes as little surprise that the move has left students displeased. KELO-TV quotes junior Ben Gertner: “One of the big reasons I came to USF is because of the radio station. All the students involved, deejays and managers are obviously sad to see the license go.” Likewise, Dr. Brett Bradfield, VP & and Provost of the University of Sioux Falls, said that the station “put a good face on the university. It was a nice recruiting tool for us, because we had that positive exposure.”
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VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES
SummitMedia Honolulu currently has an opening for a Vice President of Sales to oversee the sales department for all six SummitMedia Honolulu radio stations. This position is responsible for creating, driving, and achieving revenue goals of the cluster. Duties include but are not limited to developing, strategizing and executing a comprehensive sales plan designed to achieve revenue goals, training and developing a talented sales staff, monitoring sales activities on the stations, and making client calls with the sales staff.
Ideal candidate must have the following:• A minimum of four years of experience in radio or television sales with a demonstrated ability to develop and drive revenue. • Prior experience in preparation of marketing proposals.• Ability to manage individual sellers and train sellers on techniques in successful selling.• Experience with assisting sellers in finding and developing new local clients• Monitoring the daily activity of the sales personnel.• Developing systems to properly manage local accounts and station rates.• Experience with Non-traditional revenue and Digital sales is required. .• Maintain a “bank” of potential sales personnel for possible future employment. • Knowledge of Tapscan, and Scarborough Research is required.
If interested in applying for this position please forward a resume to: SummitMedia Birmingham Attn: Helen Mitchell 2700 Corporate Drive Suite 115 Birmingham, AL 35242 Or, email to: [email protected]
It is the policy of SummitMedia LLC to provide equal employment opportunity to all qualified individuals without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, age, or sex in all personnel actions including recruitment, evaluation, selection, promotion, compensation, training, and termination. Discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, age, or sex is prohibited. If you believe you have been the victim of discrimination, you may notify the Federal Communications Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or other appropriate agency.
