Frequently Asked Questions
#1 Is your company an advertising agency or something similar?
Answer: Absolutely not. Advertising agencies and direct response firms are paid by the station for booking/placing media for the station. They receive a 15% sales (agency) commission for doing so. The higher the rate you pay, the more commission they make. In our opinion, the agency model is completely outdated, takes advantage of customers, and should be discontinued.
#2 When someone buys TV or radio advertising, what are they buying?
Answer: They are buying impressions.
#3 What is a spot worth? What is a good price per spot?
Answer: A spot is airtime; it is worthless. Nobody can hear air. You should pay nothing for a spot.
#4 What should I be paying for then?
Answer: You should pay for the amount of people who will actually hear or see your spot. We call it paying for “ears” and “eyeballs” (impressions).
#5 Is $10.00 a good price for a spot?
Answer: You should pay nothing for a spot. If only 1000 people heard or saw your spot, then it was grossly overpriced. Your “cost per thousand” was $10.00. If 3333 people saw your ad, then it was a fantastic deal; your “cost per thousand” was $3.00. The more people who see your spots, the more sales/revenue/profit you will make.
#6 I would like to receive a proposal from your company to compare against quotes we received from other agencies/stations. Can you tell me the price per spot and how many spots I will receive based on my budget?
Answer: Again, spots are just airtime. Airtime by itself is worthless. We can tell you how many total impressions/“eyeballs”/“ears” are available in a given market and what the cost for those impressions would be. Impressions are all that matter.
#7 Will I ever know how many spots I will receive?
Answer: One week before the start of the schedule, we will let you know how many stations you are on and how many spots you have on each station.
#8 Why does it take until the end of the month to know how many spots we will be receiving?
Answer: TV and Radio inventory is perishable, much like hotel rooms, airline seats, or even tomatoes in a supermarket. If the spots are not sold, the stations lose the revenue. We purchase the unsold inventory from stations for cash and then offer it to our clients at wholesale rates. Stations like to wait until the last possible moment before drastically discounting their inventory for us.
#9 Is it possible that, in the near future, we will not be able to purchase any wholesale inventory from your company, for instance if the stations have sold all their inventory?
Answer: Good question. The answer is no. We have been acquiring unsold advertising inventory for over ten years. Since the inception of the Internet era in 1996, TV and Radio stations have lost revenue annually; unsold inventory = lost revenue. Eventually the migration of advertising dollars to the Internet will slow, but the “pie” has been permanently split. The only market we have yet to find excess inventory in is the New York City DMA. They are sold out year after year and charge a premium “Saks 5th Avenue” type rate for it.
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