3-7-13
When it comes to the job market in radio, it's not often you hear of companies doing a lot of hiring. Conversely, at Pandora, in the past year they've gone from 530 employees to over 700 and many of the hires are in sales. The company is hiring local salespeople as it continues to take aim at radio's $15 billion in annual advertising revenue. The company also recently announced it would be included in STRATA and Mediaocean data that buyers use when considering where to place ad dollars. If you haven't already, you may want to start writing Pandora into the non-compete contracts of your salespeople because CEO Joe Kennedy says the majority of the local salespeople being hired are coming from radio.
Kennedy says, "Overwhelmingly the hires we make on a local basis are coming from broadcast radio companies. Our focus is on hiring the best people with experience in markets. We found a lot of people who are tremendously excited about bringing to the market a product that has targetability, measurability, and interactivity, something that they've never been able to offer to those buyers before. Combine that with the scale of being effectively larger than any broadcast radio station in the market. We see a lot of people with backgrounds from Clear Channel, Cumulus, and CBS."
Pandora now claims to have 8 per cent of all radio listening in the United States, although they have never given any facts or research in detail as to how they come up with that number. The company also claims to be the most listened to "radio station" in many major U.S. radio markets.
(3/8/2013 2:13:39 PM)
"you may want to start writing Pandora into your non-compete contracts"..
Or....
You could treat your sales people like professionals, arming them with products that work, providing them amazing support, in a positive atmosphere built on music with a team mentality that fosters growth and rewards performance. Like Pandora.
(3/8/2013 12:26:29 PM)
Ed Ryan--
Your comment that "8-10 ads being God-awful"...
If you had to choose One..just One..
A. Your station had high ratings
B. Your station had high revenues
Which would it be?
And don't give me the 'high ratings lead to high revenues.' There have been plenty of stations with good ratings and poor revenue and , conversely, poor ratings and great billing.
The people who choose high ratings do not understand business.
I always liked it when the salespeople who couldn't cut it with us went to work at other nearby stations.
(3/8/2013 10:35:55 AM)
I happen to have an acquaintance who has a long history in radio (if I were a name-dropper, I suspect you'd know the name). He's had a radio show on the air for around thirty years.
When he's off air, I have it on good authority that he never listens to broadcast radio. He listens to the BBC Radio 6 and Radio 4 streams, as well as the stream of a public jazz station.
Soon, broadcast radio will go the way of shortwave and the crystal set.
One thing that struck me was the amount of revenue Pandora was getting on mobile compared to us (radio). And that mobile revenue was growing faster than mobile listening.
And I agree about radio being better at local personalities. It's when there is NO personality and radio jumps right into 8-10 spots that is God awful.
Good comments all.
Ed
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