We checked it out for ourselves: Glenn Felty, True Measure CEO, is claiming on his website (www.truemeasure.net) that the Dolans, which WOR Radio Network fired, are now on 2,033 affiliates with 'The Dolans Money Minute" vignette. Affiliates include heavy-hitters such as KNX-AM, WBBM-AM, KYW-AM and WCBS-AM.

Ironically, another product from True Measure, "Forbes FYI," is also on exactly 2,033 affiliates/99% coverage, according to the website. Those are some pretty lofty numbers and some pretty heavy affiliates (better than Paul Harvey, no doubt) first of all, and a bit hard to believe that that exact number of stations would clear both. The website/press release also mentions there is an opportunity for a single advertiser to get live reads embedded against the vignettes, including AM/PM drive. In a Less is More marketplace, this is hard to believe.

We asked Felty how it's done:

Is there an advertiser on board for this yet?

No yet. We're just getting that thing put together. It's not a traditional syndicated deal where you're going out clearing stations. Rather, it's taking a customized vignette that's produced in concert with the Dolans. Obviously, where they will do live recorded reads for the advertiser-they will read the commercials embedded in the show. Those are :60s in total--:30 plus :30. They'll air across a broad network, so it's as if it was buying a :60. So you're getting in-program, on a very, very large network. This is similar to Premiere's Trump. It's a short-form vignette with one sponsor attached to it and they get a 13-week schedule, minimum.

I see you have almost the exact same deal with "Forbes FYI" - - 2,033 affiliates. I assume they are all the same affiliates? How does this work?

Same aggregate of networks that we put together. For arguments' sake, let's say you took five shows or you had three networks that were each 250 affiliates and you combined them to create one master network. It's no different than, for example the Dial-Global Contemporary Network or the Reach Network from Premiere. They're all aggregates of shows. They're all taking from two to 10 programs that have like synergies-whether it's a Rock network, a Classic network, whatever. They're aggregated. So you take the aggregate of either the programs involved, or in our case for example, we have a Prep network which consists of Sheet Happens and Bitman. On their own, they're not going to be able to capture as much business because the buyer wants larger coverage and so forth. So we're doing on a smaller scale what the buyers are doing on a larger scale. There are very few buyers that want to see every 0.2.

None of these aggregated networks have overlapping affiliates?

These are unique affiliates. The idea here is you're buying the vignette, and then essentially you are buying a :60 spot and airing it on X amount of stations. The Dolans and Forbes networks are identical.

Why are you only looking for one advertiser?

As you can imagine, these are limited in availability. One per vignette. We've done these agreements with networks that just don't have that kind of inventory availability. We're an independent group-no O&Os over here. At the end of the day what we're doing is no different than what a lot of networks do. Everybody has done something on a comp basis. And who cares? If the buyers are getting the spots, they're clearing on the station list that you bought, then end of story. As far as how it got put together, they shouldn't be concerned about it. From my desk, our whole mission is about accountability and so forth, our job is to make sure that we've out together products that when you book stuff, they clear. And so whether I've booked it through a barter deal, a cash deal, programming deal or whatever, it should not matter in the least.