“We post going forward to plus or minus 10%. In other words, if a campaign only delivers 80% of the GRP’s, we would add spots on the remainder of the campaign to bring them up to 90%. If the station over delivers, say 120%, we would claw back spots (again only going forward) to 110%. We do not post retroactively, what’s been run, is what it is, whether over or under. In some instances, agencies want it guaranteed to 100% and we will accommodate this but then we would claw back to 100% as well. Always going forward, never retroactively. Thought you might like to know.”
This has been an accepted practice up North for at least 17 years, he said. “There has to be an agreement in place with the agency when we do the deal and obviously the campaign has to be of sufficient length to cross more than one rating period. In reality, we probably only have a dozen clients each year that actually expect us to post.”
Kathy Crawford, MindShare President/Local Broadcast, tells us she finds the above model almost exactly what she proposes to do with Project Reinvention, but with nuances. Why is this fair? “There is no disagreement about this. If we want to purchase 100 rating points, they deliver 100 rating points. That’s the agreement,” Crawford explains.
But it’s (posting) not a currently a two-way street in television.
“It could be a two-way street if it was done as stated above,” said Crawford. “We are proposing to do this in television and if we could, in radio. The only potential way is with the PPM, because it is daily delivery of ratings. With the diary, we can’t do that.”
