Comparing the Costs of Advertising on Fort Wayne Radio Stations Part 1

Last time I mentioned something called “non-prime-time options”, as something to look at when considering an advertising campaign with WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

First let’s define what is prime time?

Television Prime Time is different from Radio Prime Time.

In TV land, the 3 hours between 8pm and 11pm is Prime Time.  This is where the networks have been spending big bucks, for decades, to attract a viewing audience.  They figure the majority of Americans work some type of 8 to 5 job, have dinner and then by 8pm we settle in the family room and our eyes are glued to the screen each night until 11 when we trot off to bed.

While this was once true, the increasing number of viewing options with various screens and recording devices is changing this to a certain degree. For example, my wife and I never stay up to watch the Tonight Show anymore.  But we will watch a couple of episodes each month with our Comcast On Demand Feature.  We’ll watch Jimmy Fallon on our schedule.

Radio Prime Time is daytime, not night time.  Everyone wants to know about the weather and school delays to start their day.  We call this Morning Drive.  There is also a time in the afternoon called Afternoon Drive and between those two times we have a radio term called Mid-Days.

With WOWO, our Prime time is 5am to 6pm weekdays.  Charly Butcher to start your day, Pat Miller to wrap it up and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh in between.  I have to sell our local commercial inventory during these prime time hours at that $100 per minute rate.  After 6pm weeknights and most of the weekends, I have more flexibility with the price per minute.

Does anyone listen after 6pm and on the weekends?  Of course, just not as many as who listen to WOWO during prime time.

Now I am going to dig into some numbers that tell us how many people are listening to the radio.  These numbers come from the independent rating service that we subscribe to and are based on their research surveys that are conducted twice a year.

According to the ratings, WOWO has the largest radio audience in Metro Fort Wayne, over 100,000 people listen each week. Nearly all of them are adults age 21 and older.

If I look at the audience just between 6pm and 9pm weekdays, WOWO still has more adults age 21 and older than any other radio station during those hours.  The number, according to the rating data is over 32,200 listeners.  Remember that figure.

Next I looked at that same demographic, adults age 21 and older who listen during afternoon drive and uncovered few things.

Of the 15 stations listed, 11 of them have less than 32,200 listeners in the afternoon.  (WOWO was number 1).

That means I can help you reach more adults with your advertising message in the evening (non-prime-time) than most of the other stations reach in their prime time afternoon drive.

And I bet I can do it at a lower cost per commercial too.

This is just one of a multitude of examples I can do.  But here’s what it means.

You can reach just as many or more adult radio listeners on WOWO radio during our non-prime-time hours and pay less than you can advertising with most of the other Fort Wayne Radio Stations during their prime time.

Or to put it another way,  WOWO simply has more listeners that you can invite to do business with you at a price that will be less per person than your other options.

I invite you to talk with me and we can look at specifics and see what is best for you.

Next in our series, a look at some of the pricing schemes that other radio stations use to make their advertising proposals look good, and what you are really getting.  This will be based on my own experiences working at the other stations.