And the hits keep comin' with opinions on Home Depot's switch from spot radio to network radio and the effect it and other similar moves may have on radio's bottom line. This time we hear from Rich Russo, JL Media's SVP/Director of Broadcast Services and WJTH-AM Calhoun, GA's Sam Thomas
One of the potential fallouts of the Clear Channel Less is More thing is the fact that it offers the opportunity for clients that have never done :30s before to do them. What that then means is now you've already got the creative spot made to do network radio easily. There are times where you can do network radio and, for example, you might do 100 points network radio and it might deliver 130 points in New York. So I would imagine that some of the fallout is going to be that some of the bigger clients are going to say, "What the hell, I've already got the :30, let me do some network."
Where I think, possibly vice-versa, you would think that some of the local spot markets would go after network clients, but they can't, because of the price point. The advantage of local radio over network has always been that you have :60 seconds, you can cherry-pick your stations and schedules and you could get localized promotion at a car dealership or a store or whatever. The positive of network radio is you reach the whole country in one shot theoretically for a very, very favorable cost.
The Home Depot thing, it was inevitable. They spent so much damned money on spot, why wouldn't they peel of 10%-15% of it and put it in network? You've expanded your reach and you've done less work. And they're both good mediums-each medium has its own value. Ironically, they shouldn't be attacking each other. That's the joke-they should be attacking cable!
--Rich Russo
HERE IS MY 2 CENTS ON THE HOME DEPOT ADVERTISING. BEING IN A SMALL MARKET, WE WERE NOT GETTING ANYTHING FROM HOME DEPOT BECAUSE OF ONLY USING LARGER MARKET FM STATIONS. NOW TO POUR SALT IN THE WOUND, MY NETWORK CONTACTS ME SEVERAL TIMES EACH WEEK TO REPLACE THE SPOTS IN THE WEEKLY SCHEDULE WITH SPOTS THAT ARE MORE LOCAL TO MY AREA. THIS IS JUST NOT RIGHT OR FAIR IN MY WAY OF THINKING. WE NOT ONLY DO NOT RECEIVE ANY COMPENSATION FOR THIS BUT WE HAVE TO SEND THEM A CHECK EVERY MONTH FOR THE PRIVILEDGE OF HAVING WHAT THEY OFFER. GO FIGURE.
--Sam Thomas