Hollander spending to fix Infinity stations
Infinity Broadcasting President & COO Joel Hollander was careful not to bad-mouth Mel Karmazin, noting that the man who built Infinity and then ran Viacom made a lot of money for people. "That was then, this is now," Hollander told the UBS Securities Media Week Conference in New York. His new boss at Viacom, Les Moonves, is backing Hollander in spending money on marketing, talent and equipment to get Infinity's stations back on track.
"The way the company was run for a very long period of time, it was very positive for the shareholders and the employees - - and then Infinity changed," Hollander said. "Infinity was morphed into CBS; CBS was morphed into Viacom. There were different issues, different priorities. And there was probably a long period of time where the assets were not promoted and properly brought to the street to sell and were just kind of underinvested. It's nobody's fault, that's just the way the business was run back then. But like any other business, you have to feed it. There was a total lack of marketing, a total lack of capital expenditures. And again, it was positive for a long period of time for the shareholders, but it's time to reinvent the company and invest in our assets again."
Hollander said he began that process in Q4 by investing 13-14 million in promotions for eight stations in such markets as New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Dallas and Detroit and the resulting trends are positive. He noted that WCBS-FM New York hadn't been promoted with bus signs in over seven years.
Like other radio group heads, Hollander said he applauded Clear Channel for its "Less is More" initiative, but that clutter is not the only issue that radio needs to deal with. He cited underinvestment in marketing - - and not just at Infinity - - and keeping up with technology as other important areas to address. The Infinity boss said
"We've been systematically reducing inventory at radio stations that need it," Hollander said. But he said there's no need to reduce inventory at Infinity's big News and News/Talk stations as there is at some music FMs. He said the company had identified 56 radio stations over the last 14 months - - beginning before Clear Channel announced LIM - - for reductions in on-air inventory.
As to the impact of Clear Channel's anti-clutter effort, Hollander warned against expecting any quick fix. "It's gonna take 18 months for you to know whether it is working or not," he told the investor gathering.
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