Toyota Wins The Month of March

4-2-15

We always like to keep you informed about how Radio's biggest ad category is doing and in March it was a mixed bag. Toyota lead the pak selling 226,000 vehicles for an increase of 4.5% over 2014. For the first quarter, Toyota sales are up 10.5%. Ford reported a 3.5% decline in March, GM checked in down 2.4%, Nissan slipped 2.7% and Honda declined 5.3%. Hyundai reported sales were up 12% over 2014, delivering 75,019 vehicles. Analysts believe the industry will sell nearly 17 million vehicles which translates into another strong year for automakers.

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Armstrong Logs 50 Years. Retiring Next Month.

8-13-14

On Tuesday Salem Communications announced Dave Armstrong is retiring from the company at the end of September. Armstrong has managed the LA, New York and San Diego clusters during his 20 years with Salem. He started in radio while still in his teens as a part-time DJ at a small station in Conneaut, Ohio and has gone on to hold positions as PD, Sales Manager and V.P./GM during his 50 years. Although he's leaving Salem, Armstrong was quick to say: "This is the end of another chapter in my work book but it's not the final chapter and I'm excited to see what's next." We spoke to Armstrong last night about his announcement.

RI: Why are you retiring?
ARMSTRONG: I am only retiring from Salem. I believe that there is a closing chapter to my career out there somewhere and I need to look for it.

RI: 50 years is a long time. How have you witnessed radio evolve and is it in a better place now?
ARMSTRONG: Consolidation has had the most impact. When there were multiple owners in a market; there was more variety and more competition. It seemed like radio was more fun then and much more spontaneous. We didn?t have to research everything before airing it. I can?t say that radio is in a better place when much of the creativity we saw over the years has disappeared. I am sure that research might show that things are better in some areas.

RI: What is the key to leading and managing people for as long as you have? 
ARMSTRONG: Hire good people?let them know what is expected and then help them grow to their full potential. I also tell them that they are required to have fun!!!!

RI: What/when was the time you had most fun at a radio station and why?
ARMSTRONG: I have enjoyed my time at Salem. I was given the opportunity to manage clusters in Los Angeles, New York and San Diego. I have seen Christian radio grow in the impact it has on the culture. It is rewarding to know that at the end of the day our station has touched lives in ways that we will never know.

RI: What do you want to see radio do better? 
ARMSTRONG: I think we need to return to the days of serving our local communities with on air personalities who are part of the community and stations that super serve there listener with more than ?eight hot hits in a row.?

RI:What are you going to miss the most and why?
ARMSTRONG: Anytime there is a change I always miss the people. It is amazing to realize that our staff creates a new product every 24 hours. No holidays?.no vacations?.no sick days for a radio station. Every day.. as they say?the show must go on!!! I look forward to the next act!!!

Reach out to Dave to congratulate him on a stellar career at davearmstrong@salemsandiego.com

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WiFi in Your Car -- For $150 Per Month

5-13-14

As the battle for the consumers' DASH rages on at 4G speed, GM has announced it will offer Wi-Fi in the car for $5.00 per day. The Wall Street Journal has the details of the GM plan, which gives anyone willing to pay, 200 megabytes of daily downloads. It's enough data to watch a few YouTube videos but not enough for a Netflix movie. You can also pay $50 every month, which gets you 5 gigabytes. Many consumers are already surfing the web through their smartphone, so their is a question of why consumers would pay that much money for something they already get.

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Pandora Nearly Doubles Price For 12 Month Sub

4-24-14

CFO Mike Herring made the announcement on the Thursday afternoon earnings call that 12 months of Pandora will now cost $4.99 per month (an increase from $3.99 per month). A Pandora One subscription allows a user to listen without commercials. At $59.88 for twelve months, that's nearly double the $36.00 annual price. Until now users could pay for one year at the $36.00 price. Pandora is eliminating the annual subscription and will now only offer the $4.99 per-month subscription. Anyone paying $3.99 will be grandfathered in.

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ESPN Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month

9-13-13

ESPN and ESPN Deportes kick off the month-long celebration with One Naci?n: ESPN Celebrates the 25th Anniversary of Hispanic Heritage Month, a show centered around the countdown of the top 10 most influential Hispanic athletes of all time, airing on both networks Tuesday, September 17 at 8 p.m. ET. Athletes to be highlighted include Roberto Clemente, Mariano Rivera, Lionel Messi, and Oscar de la Hoya. Throughout the last three months, a panel of athletes, journalists, entertainers, and other Hispanic community leaders were invited by ESPN to vote and rank the Top 10 from an initial list of 50 athletes.

One Naci?n will be hosted by ESPN Deportes? Adriana Monsalve and ESPN?s SportsCenter anchor Max Bretos with a lineup of renowned guests that include two of the greatest boxers of all time, Roberto Duran and Julio Cesar Chavez; former MLB stars and ESPN analysts Nomar Garciaparra and Candy Maldonado; Cuban-Puerto Rican softball star Lisa Fernandez; Mexican-America former quarterback Jim Plunkett; the first Hispanic starting quarterback in the NFL Tom Flores; Puerto Rican hall of fame golf star Chi Chi Rodriguez; Puerto Rican actress Rosie Perez; Roberto Clemente?s family, including his wife Vera and two sons Luis and Roberto Jr.; and ESPN commentators Alexi Lalas, Adriana Monsalve, Fernando Palomo, and Jorge Ramos.

The show will also unveil a special donation to the Bresee Foundation and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Los Angeles.  The donation is earmarked for sports equipment and is being made on behalf of ESPN and in honor of the number one athlete on the list.

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Forecast 2013 Only One Month Away

10-22-2012

Radio Ink's Forecast 2013 is only one month away and one of our highly anticipated panels is being assembled by Bill Koenigsberg (pictured) called, "Advertiser Super Session: Where Do the Ad Dollars Grow in 2013?" 2012 saw ad revenues rise, in part thanks to the elections and the Olympics. Can 2013 continue that growth curve -- and what media are likely to be the beneficiaries? Will radio see gains, or will other platforms outperform?
Koenigsberg is assembling a fresh, exciting panel of experts from the world of advertising who will deliver their frank and insightful outlooks and projections for advertising expenditures, and where radio fits into the mix, over the next 12 months. Register for Forecast 2013 at the Harvard Club in New York on November 28.

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Rivers Remembrance Being Held Next Month

5-29-2012

The Friends of Steve Rivers are holding an event called "A Remembrance - Steve Rivers" on Thursday, June 14th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Rivers died in March of cardiac arrest at the age of 55. The event is being held at Towne Stove and Spirits, 900 Boylston Street in Boston. View the invite here.

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ESPNRadio.com Logs Best Month Ever in March

4-5-2012

The online properties of ESPN just keep rolling along, adding big consumer numbers every month. ESPNRadio.com generated nearly 1.51 million page views from users listening between 30-60 minutes of digital audio through the ESPN Audio NOW Player, more than six times (up 511 percent) as the same month last year.  It also generated more than 3.22 million unique visitors (up 11 percent) and nearly 27 million total page views (up 36 percent). ESPN was an early digital player. This is their 11th year weaving digital with their on-air products.

VP of Digital and Print Media for ESPN Marc Horine tells Radio Ink, "This year was a perfect storm of content and features with the Final Four and The Mike and Mike sheets of Integrity where 190,000 users entered their contest." It was also a record month at ESPN's New York web property thanks to the Tim Tebow trade to the New York Jets. Horine says, "This is all upside for us. We've seen continuous growth throughout the month. Based on the numbers we are seeing, this is going to be an awesome Spring. "

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February A Great Month for Auto Sales.

3-2-2012

You may conclude that a positive trend is developing in automotive sales and that can be nothing but good news for radio advertising. This story should also provide you with some positive ammo when you hit the streets today, to visit your local dealer. Automobiles on the road are aging and its clear business is picking up. Total volume of auto sales in the month of February rose 16%. U.S. light vehicles sales are up 14 percent through February to 2.06 million.

Total light vehicle sales rose to 1.15 million units as the seasonally adjusted sales annual rate hit 15.1 million, according to Automotive News. That was the healthiest pace since the 15.5 million rate in February 2008, just months before the industry collapse that sent Chrysler and General Motors into bankruptcy.

Automotive News also reported "BMW Group, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda and VW Group were among companies with gains of 30 percent or more. Hyundai-Kia surged 26 percent, aided by a 37 percent gain at Kia. Toyota Motor Sales and American Honda each posted 12 percent increases as they continued to rebound from the earthquake in Japan last March. It was Honda's first double-digit gain since April and Toyota's first since February 2011. GM rebounded from a January decline with a 1.1 percent increase compared with a year ago. Ford's sales rose 14 percent -- its biggest increase since March -- and the automaker said it would hike second quarter production across North America by 3 percent, or 20,000 units, to 730,000. Sales at the Ford division climbed 14 percent and Lincoln increase 16 percent."
Read more about the positive auto news HERE

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DIGITAL - Morning Show Generates $30K Per Month

1-5-2012

The big Ace and TJ news is their return to Charlotte?s air waves today on CC?s WHQC ? That?s not the story I want to dig into however. I want to find out how team Ace and TJ were able to put up $30K in local direct digital revenue in November without the help of a broadcast stick. We?ll hit up Adam Goodman (Chief Operating Officer for Ace and TJ and Co-President of 7to8 Media) for details and hopefully uncover a gem or two that you can apply to your local morning show to boost your digital revenue.

RI: Adam, 30K in local direct digital dollars in November?How?d you do it? 
ADAM: The simple answer is that we have a great team and because of that we?re able to produce a great radio product?Good products are easy to sell. More specifically we leveraged established relationships with advertisers and every communication tool and listener touch point we could. We didn?t have a station to rely on locally to get the message out so we had our baptism by fire in that our only option was?to figure out how to make radio work with internet only delivery. It was a rough road at times but we?re stronger and more savvy because of it?and now that we?ll be back on air we?re going to be even more successful at driving revenue from online.

RI: What ?tools and listener touch points? do you use?
ADAM: We stream the live show, we created a 10a-11a digital only hour of content to increase our inventory and to offer added value to our stations that carry us in other markets, we run a 24/7 loop of the most recent show, we have the podcast and archives, we leverage facebook, social media, we have inventory on the website, we still do appearances and local promotions, we do couponing, contesting and we have our listener email database of over 32,000 fans of the show.

RI: How many advertisers did it take to hit that revenue number?
ADAM: We had 24 advertisers on in November.

RI: What was the one thing that generated the most revenue?
ADAM: A co-op type promotion where we got 10 restaurants to put in $500 along with a $100 gift certificate. The promotion culminated in one listener winning a $1000 in restaurant GC?s. Listener response was great. Restaurant partners were excited to participate.

RI: And how did you close the deals?
ADAM: We had our main sales person, Tracy Poff, literally go door to door until we hit our target number of 10 restaurants. Turns out she?s so good she only needed to go to 10 places. All said yes right away. More promotions like that are coming for sure in 2012.

RI: Did you have any bigger national brand money booked or was it all local?
ADAM: I?d love to say that Pepsi and Apple take my phone calls but in truth all of our revenue is coming locally and regionally. Even when we?ve done work with a big brand like Ford, as we did recently for the Charlotte Auto Show, it was coordinated and paid for through a local dealer.

RI: Given your success taking a broadcast morning show online (and back) what is one suggestion you would make to stations to help them monetize online more effectively?
ADAM: You can?t sell what you don?t have. By that I mean good content. Good content and good ideas allow you to create inventory. If you don?t have the jocks on board you?ll have difficulty creating the types of content listeners will seek out and find online. I have been in meetings with lots of big name talent and the number one question I hear about digital is, ?How much more work is this going to be because I am already stretched to the max.?

RI: Could you see logic in sharing revenue with the talent or morning show for creating the additional content?
ADAM: Definitely. We do it to motivate sales people it can work to motivate a jock. At least they would feel like they?re getting something for the extra work they?re doing. And strictly from a financial perspective if on one hand you don?t have this piece of content created and you get zero dollars?.but on the other hand it is created and you get $500 or $5000, even if the morning show gets 50 cents on the dollar you are still up 50 cents.

RI: So in effect you?d be creating a digital content monetization bonus?
ADAM: Exactly.

RI: What?s the future look like for Ace and TJ?
ADAM: We plan to keep doing good radio where ever listeners are consuming it. Digital will continue to be a big focus because inventory and opportunity online is limited only by creativity. We?ve got big plans for our new home at Clear Channel in Charlotte, for the stations that carry us and for our listeners.  We plan to own 2012.

To ask Adam about any of the online strategies Ace and TJ have employed to drive revenue reach him at AGoodman@7to8media.com. To add Ace and TJ to your station?s programming roster reach out to Dave ?Chachi? Denes at Benztown Radio Networks at dd@benztown.com.

Carl Magnuson is the co-creator and director of sales for Social Radio?s personalized listening platform. Reach him at carl@socialradio.org.

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