LAS VEGAS – Not everything your radio group does online has to carry a station label – or even have a radio function.
That was the message from today’s session on building revenue for radio groups at the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention in Las Vegas.
In fact, local station operators have to think of themselves as a company that serves relevant local information to consumers while facilitating their ad clients’ messages. That means salespeople can’t just sell radio time and that not everything will be branded Power94 or somesuch.
Jim Brewer, of Chattanooga, Tenn., Brewer Media Group has pushed his local media company in just such a direction. The six-station company launched Chattanoogahascars.com in 2007 and while his stations do promote the site on the air, nothing ties the two together.
The site puts car dealers and buyers together and was quickly a profit centre, said Brewer, with over 10,000 shoppers per month.
While there is some overlap in advertisers and the dealers who pay to place their cars on the site, Chattanoogahascars also has an exclusive finance company and an exclusive insurance company on the site who pay $30,000 a year for the privilege.
Then, after exploring a partnership with a local alternative newspaper, Brewer bought it for its database and music, events and restaurant listings and reviews and all the sites and stations and print cross promote one another.
That led him into hosting a number of events, such as the local Women’s Expo, which brought in $100,000 of new revenue and the Chattanooga Eco Expo which drew 2,000 people.
Gap Broadcasting and its affiliate GapWest Broadcasting is a little larger of an operator, running 106 stations, concentrated primarily in smaller markets in and around Texas and in the Pacific Northwest.
It, too has moved into automotive, but its biggest success digitally has come from its VIP program which has built a database of 125,000 listeners in six months, according to GapWest VP Erik Hellum.
These listeners who gather points for prizes and enter raffles to win trips “are your most loyal listeners,” he added. Page views on the company sites that have the VIP program are up to seven million per month, a 71% increase over September and station ratings are up 5-8%.
Gap also purchased a large lifestyle-oriented, Dallas-based web site called Pegasus, too, in order to expand its digital reach. The site offers a range of options and even has its own iPhone app which leverages Pegasus’ local restaurants database with the iPhone’s GPS capability. It’s been downloaded over 30,000 times.
Does your station’s site have its own iPhone app?
“We have to figure out ‘what business are we in,’” said Hellum. “We’re about getting content out to local people and providing solutions to advertisers,” no matter the platform.
– Greg O’Brien
