Wednesday, April 20, 2011 | Edited by Daniel Moores
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Clear Channel's Pittman: 'We Have to Make the Digital Revolution Come to Radio' Radio Giant's Chairman on How Streaming Can Help Bridge the Local Ad Market Despite all the hype about streaming music and Pandora, digital radio only accounts for about 3% of total radio listening. At Ad Age's recent Digital Conference, Clear Channel Chairman Bob Pittman said this represents the radio industry's biggest opportunity. "We have work to do. We actually have to make the digital revolution come to radio," Mr. Pittman said. "This allows us to get in front of it, not let it happen to us but let it drive us. There are real benefits to the radio business and to our listeners." A co-founder of MTV and the former chief operating officer of AOL, Mr. Pittman has a vested interest in the future of radio. Last fall, he purchased a minority stake in Clear Channel and joined the company as chairman of its media networks. After helping fund a variety of startups such as Thrillist, Next New Networks and Zynga, Mr. Pittman was looking for the next undervalued property to place his bets. Citing statistics from Edison Research and Arbitron, Mr. Pittman noted that radio's overall listening and role in the average consumer's daily media consumption is not reflected in its portion of media ad spending. If TV is America's hobby, radio is America's companion, he said, with 3.1 hours a day spent watching TV and 2.1 hours spent with radio. That's more than the Internet (1.9 hours) or newspapers (0.5 hours.) And yet the cost-per-thousand viewers on radio is significantly lower than other media, with radio averaging $5.35 compared to $12 on TV. Mr. Pittman is betting that a larger investment in digital will help bridge that gap for Clear Channel. Last month, the company acquired streaming-music service Thumbplay to compete more directly with Pandora, CBS' last.FM, Spotify and other online radio players. Local stations have also started to phase out their antiquated phone-request lines in favor of Facebook, in order to find young listeners where they're actually living (and perhaps dispel any suspicion that the company's Premiere Radio Networks hires actors for such call-ins). Mr. Pittman also stressed the importance of the local ad market. "When I was at AOL, we tried to spend a lot of time getting to local. That was our nirvana. Radio is our nirvana. Not only is it targeted to specific audiences that hang together in a lot of characteristics, there is an emotional attachment to radio. Four in five listeners will be disappointed if their favorite station was no longer on the air." With the web, Mr. Pittman said, "We have brand permission to give them more than things in the audio stream. Replays, new parts of the show, coupons, access to artists...It's the power of being local. We have a social connection, which adds a whole other layer. Radio really does have a tribe that wants to talk to each other." (Source: Advertising Age, 04/07/11) |
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Internet Radio Garners Higher Ad Response, Recall Rates Response rates increase 200% when advertisers add Internet radio -- defined as both online-only stations and streams of broadcast stations -- to online campaigns, according to research conducted by Parks Associates for audio ad network TargetSpot. According to the new "Internet Radio Advertising Impact Study," "users who spend the minimal amount of time listening to Internet radio had higher ad response rates than heavy Internet-only users." Ad responses as defined by the report include purchasing a product online or at a retail location, searching for product information, becoming a "fan" on Facebook, or calling the advertisers. The research also reported 350% higher ad response rates when advertisers add Internet radio to broadcast radio campaigns. In a companion report on "Digital Audio Usage Trends," Parks and TargetSpot focused on listener engagement. They report that 52% of digital audio listeners recall hearing or seeing an Internet radio ad -- with 40% of that group responding to an ad. The study says that digital audio has now reached critical mass -- 39% of U.S. broadband households. While 96% of the Internet radio audience listens via computers, 45% over mobile, and 15% on tablets, the latter medium has the most active users -- with 25% of tablet listeners tuning in for four or more hours daily, compared with 23% of computer users and 16% of mobile users. And 73% of digital audio listeners reported changing stations multiple times daily, a stat the study says mirrors listening patterns for over-the-air radio. That's significant, since the study also found that Internet radio ad recall increases 17% -- and response rates 200-500% -- when users tune in to two or more stations. The "Internet Radio Advertising Impact" study, conducted online in January, surveyed 2,127 U.S. households that listen to both broadcast and Internet radio -- and use the Internet at least once a month. The "Digital Audio Usage Trends" study, conducted online in December, surveyed 1,000 U.S. Internet radio listeners (ages 18+) who listen to the medium at least once a month. (Source: Online Media Daily, 04/12/11) |
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Arbitron, Marketron Unveil New Radio Tracking, Planning Tools As the radio business struggles to win back billions in ad spending, some of the key factors in getting advertisers to sign will be ease and accountability in terms of planning, buying, reporting and analyzing radio ads. Some of the major players in the radio business are introducing new Web-based platforms for tracking and analyzing radio spending and planning new radio ad campaigns. Arbitron, the dominant radio ratings research firm, has partnered with Media Monitors to create new interactive tools offering users the latest radio ad campaign data from all markets covered by Arbitron's Portable People Meter. The platform, called "Get a GRiP," allows Arbitron clients to see the frequency and reach of specific ad campaigns, which they can sort by advertiser, client, market, station, station genre, demographic target and schedule. Among other things, "Get a GRiP" allows clients to conduct competitive comparisons for ad campaigns, breaking data down by GRPs, percent share of GRPs, commercial units and percent share of commercial units. Users can track station GRPs over time, as well as by hour and client. Get a GRiP's tools should allow them to calculate spending and cost per point for various campaigns at the market level. All this data is available within two days of spots airing, meaning that advertisers can check on the effectiveness of radio buys and tweak them, if necessary, with a much faster turnaround time. Also last week, Marketron announced last week the launch of a new, integrated online platform for reporting, analyzing, planning and buying radio inventory, and other media, if users wish. The new Marketron platform, called MediaScape, offers users access to a suite of capabilities that already exist independently -- including its Exchange, revenue builder and mobile platform. "It features one common operating environment that allows me to execute campaigns across different channels," according to Marketron CEO Steve Minisini. Users can also build in data integration from third-party services -- for example, for online measurement or ad-serving. Because it is an open platform, Minisini said MediaScape can easily be expanded to interface with online exchanges for buying and selling other kinds of media, including print, TV, online, out-of-home. "We've built an open application layer that allows everyone to play together." To that end, MediaScape can import financial and inventory information from other media, for example, to a common analytics dashboard; it can also be modified to handle billing for different sorts of media. Minisini concluded: "Anyone else in the industry can participate, and plug their services into the framework here." (Source: Media Daily News, 04/15/11) |
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