It appears that because national spot is so weak right now that ABC Radio Networks is having marketplace challenges and resorting to some unusual means to get ad sales traction. Sean Hannity (except for GM and GEICO) is now being repped by Premiere, in advance of the company getting the show 1/1/09. Because his RADAR demographics are skewing older and older, we’re now hearing ABCRN is having difficulties with Paul Harvey in the scatter market and may be facing difficulties in the upfront as well. So the solution has been to dip outside of its own sales force. Stratus Media (Glenn Felty) is already repping ABCRN’s streaming inventory. We’re now hearing that Citadel has tapped Stratus for the network radio marketplace, and they’ve just scored a significant order from Netflix. RBR could not get a confirmation from Felty or ABCRN at deadline.
RBR/TVBR observation: We wonder if Stratus prepays the spots or if it’s cleared on an order basis. Could Stratus be taking Imus’ ad sales soon as well, since he has not been a stellar performer with the national ad sales community after the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team incident?
