PG 1 800.275.2840 THE MOST TRUSTED NEWS IN RADIO MORE NEWS» insideradio.com [email protected] | 800.275.2840 TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 MRC To Test Voltair Impact. The Media Rating Council (MRC) is performing its own tests of the Voltair unit, independent of Nielsen-conducted trials set to be revealed to clients today, Inside Radio has learned. Unlike the Nielsen tests, which were largely confined to a laboratory and thus limited in their real-world conclusions, the MRC tests are being done with radio stations that are using the controversial audio processor. “Voltair is relevant to MRC, despite not having been introduced by Nielsen, because of its specific design to impact encoding processes,” George Ivie, executive director of the ratings watchdog, told Inside Radio. While Nielsen’s attempts to gain the cooperation of broadcasters using the box were largely unsuccessful, some radio groups shared information with the MRC about their experiences with Voltair on a confidential basis. “We are using this information to facilitate our own testing, but by agreement this station information cannot be shared with Nielsen or anyone else,” Ivie said. The tests, which will continue through August, are being performed by CPAs commissioned by the MRC. Once they’re complete, the MRC and its CPAs plan to review ratings data for stations before and after installation of Voltair and to evaluate the audio processor’s impact on the editing rules that Nielsen uses in the PPM system to ensure stations receive proper listening credit. MRC says it will report the finding to its Radio Committee, which is made up of broadcasters, agencies and advertisers. The MRC’s CPA firm is also “walking through” the Nielsen test results and plans to summarize them to the MRC and its Radio Committee. But Ivie stopped short of calling that process a “validation” of the Nielsen tests. However, once the MRC completes its own lab and field testing, Ivie says it will “have the ability to corroborate Nielsen’s testing in many areas, which would be a form of validation.” Radio Swings For Hyper-Local Fences. Radio, with its thousands of local stations, has long had an understandable rep for targeting prowess. Now geo-fencing technology is helping it hyper-target to even narrower areas and tap into the ad budgets of local businesses that typically aren’t big radio spenders. Digity and Delmarva Broadcasting, among others, have added geo-targeted mobile display ads to their client offerings. The growing practice involves drawing a virtual circle of 100 meters or more around a client’s location and serving mobile ads to anyone that enters that fenced area with a GPS-enabled mobile device. The goal is to drive foot traffic into the store with special offers. Delmarva, which owns about a dozen stations in the mid-Atlantic region, has executed dozens of geo-targeted campaigns during the last year. The company now attributes 13% of its total digital revenue to location-based advertising. In West Palm Beach, where Digity operates seven radio stations, digital sales manager Marco Mottola says they’ve experienced a 90% retention rate among clients using the service, many of whom are local advertisers that weren’t previously big radio users. Location- based advertising makes up roughly 20% of the station’s digital revenue. Mottola says the campaigns produce average click rates from 0.3-0.5% compared to 0.1%, which is considered the national average. But results are measured beyond the click. A veterinarian in West Palm Beach nearly tripled the number of new customers compared to that of a typical month, according to Mottola. Both companies, along with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Cumulus Media, Beasley Media, Radio One and Saga Communications are using a product developed by ad management provider Marketron, which works with online ad networks to place the ads. How can geo-fencing help a station to “own their backyard?” Read only at insideradio.com.
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MRC To Test Voltair Impact. The Media Rating Council (MRC) is performing its own tests of the Voltair unit, independent of Nielsen-conducted trials set to be revealed to clients today, Inside Radio has learned. Unlike the Nielsen tests, which were largely confined to a laboratory and thus limited in their real-world conclusions, the MRC tests are being done with radio stations that are using the controversial audio processor. “Voltair is relevant to MRC, despite not having been introduced by Nielsen, because of its specific design to impact encoding processes,” George Ivie, executive director of the ratings watchdog, told Inside Radio. While Nielsen’s attempts to gain the cooperation of broadcasters using the box were largely unsuccessful, some radio groups shared information with the MRC about their experiences with Voltair on a confidential basis. “We are using this information to facilitate our own testing, but by agreement this station information cannot be shared with Nielsen or anyone else,” Ivie said. The tests, which will continue through August, are being performed by CPAs commissioned by the MRC. Once they’re complete, the MRC and its CPAs plan to review ratings data for stations before and after installation of Voltair and to evaluate the audio processor’s impact on the editing rules that Nielsen uses in the PPM system to ensure stations receive proper listening credit. MRC says it will report the finding to its Radio Committee, which is made up of broadcasters, agencies and advertisers. The MRC’s CPA firm is also “walking through” the Nielsen test results and plans to summarize them to the MRC and its Radio Committee. But Ivie stopped short of calling that process a “validation” of the Nielsen tests. However, once the MRC completes its own lab and field testing, Ivie says it will “have the ability to corroborate Nielsen’s testing in many areas, which would be a form of validation.”
Radio Swings For Hyper-Local Fences. Radio, with its thousands of local stations, has long had an understandable rep for targeting prowess. Now geo-fencing technology is helping it hyper-target to even narrower areas and tap into the ad budgets of local businesses that typically aren’t big radio spenders. Digity and Delmarva Broadcasting, among others, have added geo-targeted mobile display ads to their client offerings. The growing practice involves drawing a virtual circle of 100 meters or more around a client’s location and serving mobile ads to anyone that enters that fenced area with a GPS-enabled mobile device. The goal is to drive foot traffic into the store with special offers. Delmarva, which owns about a dozen stations in the mid-Atlantic region, has executed dozens of geo-targeted campaigns during the last year. The company now attributes 13% of its total digital revenue to location-based advertising. In West Palm Beach, where Digity operates seven radio stations, digital sales manager Marco Mottola says they’ve experienced a 90% retention rate among clients using the service, many of whom are local advertisers that weren’t previously big radio users. Location-based advertising makes up roughly 20% of the station’s digital revenue. Mottola says the campaigns produce average click rates from 0.3-0.5% compared to 0.1%, which is considered the national average. But results are measured beyond the click. A veterinarian in West Palm Beach nearly tripled the number of new customers compared to that of a typical month, according to Mottola. Both companies, along with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Cumulus Media, Beasley Media, Radio One and Saga Communications are using a product developed by ad management provider Marketron, which works with online ad networks to place the ads. How can geo-fencing help a station to “own their backyard?” Read only at insideradio.com.
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Hyper-Target Tech Scores Client Bulls-eye. Car dealers are seen by broadcasters as the obvious first line of clients when it comes to selling geo-fenced digital campaigns. The typical MO is to serve ads to potential buyers while they’re on the lot or in the showroom of a competitor and lure them across the street with a better offer. Dealerships like location-based ads, broadcasters say, because they often see an immediate impact on leads. But clients using location-based campaigns run the gamut from insurance companies to veterinarians to hurricane windows retailers to recruitment advertisers. The trend is expected to grow with U.S. mobile advertising forecasted at $28.7B in 2015 and on track to more than triple over the next 5 years. Mark Weidel, general manager at Delmarva’s DBC Interactive, says the geo-fenced ads are getting three to six times higher click rates than those usually seen in online display advertising and that one client, a trucking company looking to recruit drivers, received a 16% click rate. Those ads were sent to a geo-fence around a medical facility that specializes in physicals for truck drivers. “It’s really important to make sure the fences are unique to the client and where their prospects are going to be and that the message has a strong call to action,” Weidel says. Delmarva has used fencing to help clients attract booth traffic at trade shows and to reach attendees at the Firefly Festival at Dover International Speedway in June. “Events have become something that we increasingly look at,” Weidel says.
At $223 Million, Q2 M&A Doubles Q1. If the new SNL Kagan figures are correct, radio station deals have been ringing up a few registers, with Q2 M&A volume reaching $125.1 million for radio, and an additional $98.2 million for TV; that $223.3 million was almost twice the total listed in the first quarter. However those registers aren’t making anywhere near the noise they did in the glory days of 2013 and 2014’s billion-dollar quarters. The largest recorded radio deal of the second quarter of 2015 was Alpha Media’s $38.25 million acquisition of Morris Communications’ 36 stations. SNL Kagan estimates a 7.0x forward seller’s multiple for the rated FM stations and a 6.0x multiple for the rated AM stations, resulting in an overall multiple of 6.7x. Larry Patrick, managing partner of station broker Patrick Communications, says the simple truth is that “there aren’t a lot of quality groups of large size that are willing to sell” right now. He says some investors are waiting for the presumed TV spectrum auction next year, when TV transactions might be very volatile and robust. For radio, he says, cash flows aren’t quite as attractive to would-be buyers or to banks. “Wall Street looks at those cash flows and says, ‘That’s not where I want to put my money right now.’” All of which means the focus of the deal market has almost completely shifted to small markets and non-rated areas. The three top radio deals of the quarter and two of the three top TV deals all took place in markets ranked 100-plus, Kagan reported.
CBS Radio’s Major Management Shift. In its first major upper management restructuring since 2007, CBS Radio announced a series of new senior level appointments yesterday under new president Andre Fernandez. The reorganization follows a tumultuous period for the company, which made a sizable reduction in its workforce last week. The changes move CBS vet Scott Herman from EVP of operations to chief operating officer. Herman will report directly to Fernandez, who arrived in April following the retirement of Dan Mason. All of the company’s market managers now report to Herman, who has handed over the New York market manager position he briefly held to Marc Rayfield; Rayfield now moves up from the company’s Philadelphia cluster. Herman first moved into a corporate role for CBS Radio in 2003 as EVP of the Eastern Region. “[Herman] understands CBS Radio’s vision for the future and will provide strength to our senior leadership team as we move forward with a variety of key growth initiatives,” Fernandez said in a statement. The changes also bumped Baltimore market manager Bob Philips into a new corporate role as SVP/director of sales, replacing Michael Weiss, who held the president of sales position since 2007. Philips will manage all local radio station sales and oversee relationships with national rep firm Katz Radio Group, while continuing as Baltimore market manager. In other changes. Local Digital Media president Ezra Kucharz now reports to Fernandez and to CBS Television Stations Group president Peter Dunn, adding responsibility for digital sales across the two local businesses. EVP of radio programming Chris Oliviero adds research oversight. Rich Lobel continues as EVP and CMO of cross-platform sales unit Altitude, but now reports directly to Fernandez. And Stacey Benson will oversee the radio division’s financial operations in her current role as SVP of finance.
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Numbers Tell Programmatic’s Growth. Programmatic buying and selling of online display-related advertising generated $10.1 billion in 2014, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in its first-ever tabulation of the size of the programmatic market, prepared by PwC. That comprised 20% of last year’s overall $49.5 billion in Internet advertising revenue, and may be a taste of how quickly programmatic has swept into the digital space—and a sign of where it’s headed. As broadcast radio preps its forays into programmatic, led by iHeartMedia and Katz Media Group, some buyers see it as an easier, more efficient way to buy and track their radio campaigns. OMD U.S. director of national audio investment Natalie Swed Stone told Inside Radio she expects to place the bulk of her radio buys programmatically by the middle of 2016. A key difference in programmatic in digital and programmatic as it has evolved so far in radio is that the broadcaster sets the price in radio while digital ads go through real-time bidding and market demand dictates the price. So for radio, the “programmatic” aspect is using software with data to fulfill a media transaction. But those real-time bids are huge. In the digital world, IAB reported, open auctions made up 70% of the programmatic revenue. And Magna Global has projected that worldwide programmatic ad spending will reach $32.6 billion by 2017, with the U.S. accounting for 50% of the total.
Radio Tops Mobile Grid—Report. A new comScore Global Mobile Report says that of all types of sites in the crowded mobile universe, radio over-indexes the highest—at 161—among U.S. users, and that includes mobile use of photo apps, book readers, coupons, maps, weather and even other entertainment-media. In indexing, a score of 100 is average representation; anything over that is an indication of excelling. In ranking of “most mobile” properties among the top 100, the report says 85% of Pandora’s total digital audience visits via mobile, putting it second. Close behind, in the fifth spot, is iHeartRadio, where 79% of users access the platform via mobile. And 49% of the U.S. digital media property’s audience only visits via mobile platforms. In another survey section examining broader digital figures, comScore says 23% of all digital usage in the U.S. centers around “entertainment”; social is next with 21%. All the figures are from March 2015.
Millennials’ Mobile Numbers Are Strong. Though radio’s strong showing in a new comScore Global Mobile Report is quietly reported news—even comScore doesn’t comment on it—it’s well worth noting, considering a 2014 Cisco report that the number of mobile devices exceeded the world’s population. In the U.S., mobile phone and tablet usage takes up 61% of the total time consumers spend with their digital devices, a higher percentage than in Canada or the U.K., the other two nations studied by comScore. And these are young users: 37% of the total digital audience is 18-34-year-old millennials, and 38% are aged 35-54, both prime targets for radio. The report says 18-34s spend 61% of their digital time on smartphones; that figure drops to 50% for adults 35-54. The data from the report comes from comScore MMX Multi-Platform study that provides “de-duplicated” reporting of digital audiences across all device types.
iHeart Trumps Fox With GOP Forum. How many Republican Presidential candidates can fit into one 90-minute radio program? The folks at iHeartMedia and four radio stations serving New Hampshire will find out on Monday Aug. 3, when iHeart and the New Hampshire Union Leader team up to sponsor “Voters’ First Republican Candidates Forum” at St. Anselm’s College, Manchester. Fox News has said it will limit its televised debate on Aug. 6 to only the top-10 polling candidates, but iHeart and the newspaper don’t have that restriction. A dozen candidates have shown interest. Donald Trump, in the news lately for several controversial comments, has a schedule conflict but he’s trying to work it out, says Tim Moore, iHeart’s senior VP, New Hampshire. As for the pace, he says, “It’s going to be fast. It’s not going to be a debate, but it’s going to call on them to be unlike what politicians usually are—succinct.” The forum will be moderated by Jack Heath, host of “New Hampshire Today,” which originates at Manchester’s “News Radio 610” WGIR. It will simulcast on iHeart’s “News Radio 96.7” WQSQ, Portsmouth-Dover-Rochester and Portsmouth’s “Classic Country 1380” WMYF-AM. It will also air on separately owned news/talk/sports “The Pulse” WTPL-FM, Concord, NH, and iHeartRadio’s streaming platform. C-SPAN on cable and a station in Cedar Rapids, IA and another in Columbia, SC will show it on TV. In a
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statement, Heath recognized that Fox is limiting the size of its gathering but said, “That’s not the New Hampshire way.” At the time of Monday’s iHeart announcement, there were 15 declared Republican candidates. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is expected to make it sweet 16 as of today.
Turns Out El Paso Host Has A “Voice” For Reality TV. Taking a golden opportunity to be both seen and heard (and potentially lauded), an El Paso, TX radio host is getting a shot at NBC’s “The Voice” reality singing competition. Patricia Valencia, known on the air as Patty Campos in afternoon drive on Townsquare Media hot AC “93.1 Kiss-FM” KSII, El Paso, auditioned last week for a spot to appear on the next season of the megahit NBC reality competition show. The chance came about after Valencia, a talented singer in her own right, met Matt Iudice, manager for the rock band Candlebox, in 2012 at an El Paso music festival. According to a story in Valencia’s hometown newspaper, the La Cruces Sun-News, she and Iudice stayed in touch and he recently asked if she would be interested in trying out. He had shared video clips of her signing with a show producer, who wanted to bring Valencia to Los Angeles for a private audition. In preparation, Iudice arranged for a Skype session with a veteran voice coach, “Mama Jan” Smith, who has worked with top-names artists such as Justin Bieber, Usher, India Arie and others. Valencia is a 10-year veteran of radio and says the medium prepared her well for the singing competition. This is her second attempt at a reality competition, having auditioned for Fox’s “American Idol” in 2006.
How Social Media Played a Role in New NPR Staff Contract. In the latest union deal for public radio employees, National Public Radio staffers represented by SAG-AFTRA approved a two-year contract with management that includes slight annual raises. The deal, a successor to the previous master contract, preserves key benefits, and covers 400 on-air and off-air staffers in NPR’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. It calls for a 2.5% pay raise on Jan. 1, 2016, and another 2.5% raise on Jan. 1, 2017. During six weeks of negotiations, NPR staffers turned to social media to raise awareness, posting photos and job descriptions to Twitter with the hashtag #WeMakeNPR. “Our union has built a strong collective bargaining agreement over many years, and it remains strong today,” Richard Harris, chief shop steward and negotiator, said in a statement. “The support and solidarity from the SAG-AFTRA members gave us the strength that we needed to push this deal to a successful conclusion.” The new contract retains overtime pay, maintains that the 403(b) retirement plan is still fixed at 7% of pay and overtime, calls for NPR to cover 70% of total health insurance premiums and guarantees union-negotiated benefits will stay intact. The new NPR contract follows recent SAG-AFTRA deals for public radio employees at Chicago Public Radio and KPBS-FM San Diego (89.5). SAG-AFTRA also represents employees at KPCC-FM LA (83.9), KQED-FM San Francisco (88.5), WNYC-FM New York (93.9) and KPLU-FM Seattle (88.5).
Now On Spotify—Whatever You Like Best. Faced with ever-increasing competition, Spotify continues to roll out new features to differentiate itself and to give users more ways to use the digital music service. The latest feature is “Discovery Music,” which the streaming giant says handpicks songs for users just like their best friend would for a mixtape, and builds custom playlists. The feature uses subscribers’ music listening history to create personalized playlists featuring one’s favorite music along with top selections by users with similar tastes. “Discovery Music” playlists will run two hours long and be updated every other Monday. The playlists can be accessed across devices and downloaded for offline listening. The option will appear at the top of users’ playlist folders, but new subscribers will have to wait a few weeks to get “Discovery Music,” while the service collects data on their favorites and music tastes. In the face of new competition from Apple Music, Spotify has been rolling out features that tap into its reams of user data to create customized offerings, hoping to give consumers more reasons to subscribe. Last week, the company launched its “Musical Map of the World” interactive map that allows users to browse playlists from nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. and abroad featuring that market’s most popular songs (at least by Spotify standards). Spotify counts more than 75 million users in about 65 countries.
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