WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Audio Insights

by Scott Howard | Jun 23, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Of the 5 senses most of us are born with, some have different filtering properties.

Those 5 human senses are

Taste
Touch
Sight
Hearing
Smell

Some of these might diminish as we get older, the most common ones are sight and hearing. Others vary depending on the individual as my wife’s sense of smell is much stronger than mine.

In the media and marketing world that I work with it’s usually the sense of sight and hearing that are most important. And there is one huge difference.

We can close our eyes and stop the visual messaging, but our ears are always listening. Even when we are dead asleep, we can be woken by an unexpected sound, right?

A recent report offers insights on different audio and why people listen to them.

Traditional AM/FM Radio, Owned Music such as CDs, Vinyl Albums, Downloaded MP3s , Music Streaming Services and Podcasts were all examined.

In my role as the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio, a news/talk station that’s nearly 100 years old, I always find these independent studies interesting and they often confirm what I already know.

There has always been an interesting relationship between music radio stations and “record companies”. When I worked for music stations we relied on the records/cds/mp3s for our programming. The record companies relied on the music radio stations to play and promote their recordings because it led to sales of their product.

There has always been a segment of the population that would find ways to get their music without either paying for it, or avoid commercials and the reality is that Never Radio group is actually a tiny percentage of the population. Most of us are consumers of multiple sources of audio.

Let’s dig in to the research.

AM/FM Radio stands alone as the audio most widely used to ‘get information’ and ‘feel connected. Podcast listeners most commonly listen to satisfy their curiosity: they listen ‘to learn something new’ but also ‘to be entertained’ and podcasts are the only audio type where many also listen ‘to be inspired.’

WOWO radio accomplishes this with our news talk format and our Federated Media Podcast network includes both archived highlights and interviews along with original content. On a personal or side note, the growing popularity of podcasts fits in with the current trend to On Demand entertainment that so many of us have been doing with TV viewing.

The top seven activities taking place while listening to AM/FM radio are: commuting by car, shopping/running errands by car, relaxing at home, working, doing chores/gardening, eating breakfast and driving kids to school/activities.

Traditional thinking has been that the most listened to times for radio stations is “drive times” because people are listening as they drive back and forth to work. Looking at the rating data I have for WOWO radio however, our listenership remains strong all day long.

AM/FM radio again carves out a distinct profile, most frequently riding shotgun as listeners commute, shop or run errands in their cars. Listeners to the other types of audio are more homebound, being most likely to listen while ‘relaxing at home.’ Many listeners to podcasts and owned music also listen in the car, unlike music streamers where data charges likely get in the way. AM/FM Radio serves a particularly distinct set of needs and use cases, reaching listeners when they are seeking information and connection and when they are out and about.

Also unique to the talk radio format is what I call “appointment listening”. Some of the most loyal talk radio listeners tune in daily to hear what their favorite talk show host has to share on WOWO. Music radio listeners are less likely to do this and may tune out if the station plays a song they don’t like or too many commercials in a row.

Want to know more about how to invite our listeners to become your customers? Contact me, Scott Howard with an email. Scott@WOWO.com is my email. I also have sponsorship opportunities for our podcasts along with on the radio, and if you’ve ever considered doing your own podcast, we have the tools and technology for that too.

State of The Station for WOWO Summertime 2021

by Scott Howard | Jun 16, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Media, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Here we are in the middle of June 2021 and this weeks article and podcast is a little different from my usual weekly updates.

Today an update on what is going on at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from an insiders perspective as we peak behind the curtain and give you some insights.

First a bit about me, just so you know who I am and how I know what I’m going to tell you. I joined WOWO Radio in December, 2013 as the 5th person on a five person advertising sales team. WOWO is one of 6 radio stations owned by Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I not only survived, but thrived. I won my first Feddy Award in 2014 for Supergoal. Feddy’s are the Federated Media achievement awards, like Grammy’s or Emmy’s.

As the years went by, I continued to grow and I won my second Feddy Supergoal Award in 2019 for Federated Media’s Fort Wayne division. These Supergoal awards are only given to one person each year in Fort Wayne and they do the same at our Federated Media South Bend division. I also won my third Feddy in 2019, but this was company wide, not just our division. This Feddy Award is Account Manager of the Year for our company.

The past nearly 8 years is just a portion of my background in radio, advertising and marketing. I started while I was in high school on the radio and worked for a few other stations on the air and on the advertising business side for a few decades. Finally, I will mention that right after I won my second and third Feddy Awards, I was promoted to become the General Sales Manager for WOWO Radio and now lead the team to help businesses connect with our listeners and convert them into customers.

Now let’s move on to what I really wanted to share with you.

WOWO radio is nearly 100 years old. 2025 will mark a century of WOWO radio. The past 20 or so years, WOWO has been a news and talk formatted radio station. Since I joined in 2013 we’ve had a couple of changes in our programming line-up:

Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher was on until August 2018 from 5am to 9am. Charly unexpectedly passed away while on vacation and our company had to scramble and plan at the same time. Charly was a beloved radio icon who I worked with when I was on the air at our sister station WMEE and when the opportunity arose for a new morning anchor on WOWO, Charly was given the opportunity which he handled marvelously. He was in his early 60’s when he died and Federated Media had a couple of guest hosts as they did a local and national search for his replacement. Turns out our news director, Kayla Blakeslee was selected and Kayla has been doing an outstanding job these past 3 years. Looking forward, Kayla has decades ahead of her as the host of WOWO’s fast paced morning news show. Her advertisers are getting results and her personal endorsement clients are thrilled.

National talk show host Glenn Beck kicks off the WOWO Mid-Day Double Play at 9am as he has for years. Glenn also will endorse local businesses, ask me about it.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh anchored the noon to 3pm portion of the Mid-Day Double Play on WOWO until February this year. He passed away a little over a year after announcing he had lung cancer. Rush was able to continue his radio show with a rotating cast of fill-in hosts in 2020 when he was off for treatment. After the announcement of his passing this year, the program continued with hosts playing clips from the Rush radio archives that were woven into the events of the day.

The Rush Limbaugh program was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks and while we at WOWO waited to see what Premiere was going to do to replace Rush, we looked around to see what our options were. Should we wait and see or pick someone local? Is there someone that we should consider that another network was offering? A lot of activity was going on behind the scenes even before Rush died because we knew we would need a plan.

We needed a plan to satisfy two groups. The WOWO listeners who were loyal to conservative talk radio in the style of Rush Limbaugh for decades, was one group. We also wanted to give our advertising partners a radio show that they would want to continue to support. Now let me share with you something about that.

Not all of our advertisers would be called supporters of the conservative talk programming WOWO offers. But they see the value in inviting the WOWO listeners to their business. Advertising on WOWO is a great investment and I’ll have more on that in a moment.

Around the country over 1000 radio stations carried Rush and as we contemplated our options, we also knew the timing would need to be right. Rush listeners grieved and by continuing with the legacy Rush shows on WOWO, it helped them, I’m sure. We also did a poll to our database of listeners to see who they wanted and it turns out the listeners top choice was also ours.

Dan Bongino debuted on WOWO and hundreds of other radio stations on Monday May 24th and the response has been excellent. Dan’s show is not from the Premiere Radio Network so it created a bit of confusion when about three days after Dan debuted, the Premiere network announced they were going to pair Buck Sexton with a guy from the Fox Sports network to co-host from noon to 3pm. Dan did an excellent job of explaining that they were a different network and he wasn’t going anywhere.

I am very happy with Federated Media’s decision to add Dan Bongino from noon to 3pm and I think you will be too if you listen.

Afternoons on WOWO continue to be the Pat Miller Program. Pat marked a 20 year milestone on WOWO this year. He started out hosting a Saturday morning show on WOWO and then took over afternoons from 3pm to 6pm when that daily show became available.

Nights on WOWO continue with a tape delay (by three hours) of Sean Hannity’s radio show from 6pm to 9pm. We have one more change occuring starting next Monday night at 9pm. Mark Levin returns to WOWO. Mark is another national conservative talk show host that was on from 9pm to midnight when I started at WOWO and his return is welcomed by all.

Now that you know the line-up, what about our ratings?

Ratings are done by an independent company that surveys people in the Metro Fort Wayne area and provides us with monthly updates. During my time at WOWO, we have been either number one, two or three out of nearly 30 radio stations in the number that matters most, total number of listeners. It’s been at least 5 years since we were third and usually we were number two behind our sister station WMEE in total listeners ages 12 and older. We’ve always been the most listened to station for grown ups. Well the last rating update has WOWO as the most listened to radio station with over 100,000 listeners every week. Hat’s off to all of my co-workers in the programming department and news department for that outstanding accomplishment.

I was asked this week by the manager of one of the largest retailers based in Fort Wayne, how we are doing financially? Did we take a hit during 2020 and have we started to recover?

Here’s the answer: March 2020 was when the state of Indiana was told to stay at home to prevent the spread of Covid. Federated Media made some adjustments and also worked with our advertising partners to help them survive. Numerous times I have been thanked by our clients for our being sensative to their situations and it has paid off for both them and us.

WOWO’s goals are to not just beat 2020, but to grow beyond our 2019 pre-pandemic levels. We are doing it. I have some of the very best advertising and marketing people in our city working for me at WOWO. We hear it from our advertisers that we really listen, care and respond to what our clients need.

As you look forward to the rest of 2021 and the years ahead, my pledge to you is to continue that level of service and earn your trust month after month after month.

Email me if you would like more information, Scott@WOWO.com and one more item…

I am looking for just the right person to join our WOWO Advertising Sales Team. Email me Scott@WOWO.com and I can give you more details on what can be one of the most rewarding careers available in Fort Wayne, Indiana at WOWO Radio.

Why Your TV Ads Are Not Working

by Scott Howard | Jun 9, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

It’s not nice to bad mouth others and I try to avoid it.

I also want to be truthful.

Over the next few weeks, I am sharing some information that might sound like I’m bad mouthing others, however I am more interested in providing you with the truth about advertising mediums so you can be smart with your advertising and marketing plans.

Today we look at what has happened to the world of television and why you probably need to rethink your ad plan if you have been a fan of using TV to invite viewers to become your customers.

Trade publication Radio Ink shared some highlights from an article written by Pierre Bouvard of Westwood One. I have no connection to any of them but for your information some of the programming on our radio stations come from the Westwood One radio syndication service including the recently launched Dan Bongino show on my station WOWO from noon to 3pm in the same timeslot that Rush Limbaugh used to occupy.

Anyway, after reading the Radio Ink story, I also read what Pierre wrote and have some quotes and highlights to share with you.

Why Advertisers Need Radio? A big reason is the fragmentation and decline in Television viewership. According to Bouvard the TV landscape is undergoing massive change and that all works to radio’s advantage.

The details:

One out of four persons 25-54 cannot be reached on linear TV. AM/FM radio’s 89% weekly reach among persons 25-54 is much stronger than television’s 77%.

In just two years, comparing 2018 to 2020, there has been a huge decline in people watching traditional TV. Why?

“Worst year ever” for cord cutting: Pay TV lost 5.5 million subscribers in 2020. COVID-19 caused Americans to stay home and look to media outlets for information and entertainment. The ever-increasing number of video streaming services meant a step back from traditional TV for many American households.

It’s not that we have stopped watching content on screens, it’s that the way we get that programming content has shifted.

Cable buys miss 40% of America as pay TV penetration collapses.

2009 was the best year for cable TV with nearly 9 out of 10 homes hooked up to a cable service. Now only 61% of America subscribes to cable TV. And the major broadcast networks are suffering too.

Broadcast TV’s reach is down an average of -22% across FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates. Since 2016, broadcast TV has reached fewer persons 18+ across the four major broadcast network affiliates.

The article continue with a solution but it uses a bunch of advertising agency lingo that I’ll interpret for you.

Pierre points to a study that uses consumer products giant Proctor and Gamble. Adding Radio ads to the TV ads increased the reach of their advertising messages 3 times more than if they simply bought more TV ads.

Weather Tech is another company that is using both TV and radio and the addition of radio ads increased their reach over 60%.

AM/FM radio makes your TV better by reaching light TV viewers. Light and non-TV viewers are a challenge for marketers. Advertisers can’t solve the light TV problem by buying more TV. AM/FM radio reaches 83%+ of the light TV viewer audience across all demographics.

So if you are a fan of using TV advertising, and you aren’t seeing the same results you used to, know you know why. And you also have a way to overcome this problem that I can help you with. Email me, Scott@WOWO.com

The Disappearing TV Audience

by Scott Howard | May 19, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Not even a pandemic can save broadcast television.

As America opens up again after being told to stay home last year, we’re getting new data about some of the long term affects of the COVID-19 pandemic. And since I’m a media and marketing dude, not a doctor, I’m going to focus on what I know about. Get your health and wellness info from someone qualified to advice you.

I am qualified to talk about media and marketing because that is not just my passion but it’s been my livelihood for a few decades plus I have access to data that most of you don’t.

One of the predictions about 2020 was that media consumption habits were going to change due to our being stuck at home. Less people on the road would decrease radio listenership and TV would stop the slide in viewership that it’s been suffering for the past decade.

Well, radio listenership may have shifted a bit temporarily, it’s just as strong and healthy as ever. Broadcast TV, that’s a different story.

Here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we have had 5 major broadcast TV stations since I was a kid. ABC was channel 21, CBS was channel 15, NBC was channel 33, PBS was channel 39 and FOX was channel 55. Those were the channels my Mom watched 20 years ago without cable and people of her generation are still watching broadcast TV, but not as many or as much because they are dying off (80 to 90 year olds), or they’ve done what my generation and those younger are doing and watching TV from cable or streaming services.

We have a collection of restaurants run by the Hall’s family in Fort Wayne that a friend of mine predicted would be out of business in 10 years because all their customers were old. He made that prediction 20 years ago and most of those restaurants are still here. Why? Because they keep making old people is my answer.

But there is more to this problem for broadcast TV because the TV networks are not creating shows that younger generations want to watch. The younger generations are finding them online or on streaming services, not ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox.

MarketingCharts.com shared data that compares July thru September 2020 with the same 3 months of 2019 and except for those age 65+, the trend for watching less broadcast TV that has been going on for more than a decade, continued despite being told to stay home.

This continuing decline is because of the habits younger generations have formed that simply can’t be ignored. Teens are now watching less than an hour of TV, that’s a drop of 21% in just the last year. The 18 to 34 year olds viewing habits dropped over 23% in the past year. The only age group that didn’t lose viewers were those 65 and older and they barely retained the number of viewers and time spent watching TV. It happened to the Yellow Pages of the phone book, it continues to happen to the newspaper industry as technology changes occur and consumer habits change, the decline continues and is happening to broadcast TV. Not even a stay-at-home order in the worst pandemic of our lifetimes has been able to save the TV stations from losing viewers.

I have a couple of questions for you if you are a business owner that has relied on TV advertising to draw in new customers.

How is it working for you compared to years ago?

19 out of 20 business owners I asked this question to at the end of 2019 (before the pandemic) told me that they have seen a decrease in their return on investment on advertising on traditional local TV. The other person had no idea because business was booming and he used multiple avenues to advertise.

The other question is would you like to see an alternative form of advertising that hasn’t become less effective, that can either work hand in hand with your other marketing and advertising or replace some of the advertising avenues that aren’t producing for you like they used to? Contact me, Scott@WOWO.com and I’ll put you in touch with someone from my team to discuss what can be done to make your business successful and growing this year and for years to come.

The Right Way to Use Radio Advertising

by Scott Howard | May 12, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Most businesses don’t know how to use radio advertising to increase their business.

I know, that’s a pretty “out there” declaration coming from the guy who has spent a few decades in radio advertising and currently leads the most successful local advertising sales team in our city.

But it’s because of my background that I have the experience to know that Most businesses don’t know how to use radio advertising to increase their business.

It’s not just my experience but because of my background, training and research, because I know others who have been involved in radio longer than me that don’t understand what I’m going to tell you today.

Most advertising sales people are taught how to sell advertising.

That’s important but do you know what’s more important?

Knowing how to use advertising to help a business market themselves to reach their goals.

This month I reviewed with my sales team the difference between Brand Building Advertising Campaigns versus Event Oriented Advertising Campaigns. I’ve discovered that at least 80% of the people who are wanting to sell you advertising, are clueless about this so you are about to become smarter than them.

Too many advertising campaigns wrongly focus on short term sales when they really should building brands.

For example, how often do you buy a car? A quick Google search told me that the average person keeps a car for 6 years. My wife and I each have a car so on average, you could say we are likely to buy a car every three years.

Most car dealerships advertise sales. They are usually annoying ads, stereotypical sleazy used car guys come to mind when I think of most of the ads I’ve seen or heard.

Since 2013 my wife and I have bought 4 cars, which puts us above average. Three of those 4 cars were to replace a car we’d worn out. Only one was because I wanted to upgrade my transportation. But no matter what the reason for buying another car, it never was because of a sale that I heard in an advertisement.

I used to buy all my cars from a friend who had an impeccable reputation. The two cars my wife and I had in 2013 were from him. Then he retired from the business and it was time to do some true car shopping the way most people do.

We did our research online to see which used vehicles would fit our needs. All four cars I bought passed three criteria:

The car was recommended on all the review sites we researched.
The price was appropriate, not too low or too high
I either trusted the dealership and/or the salesperson.

I passed on some that cost less because of the lack of trust. Even the last car I bought this year was from a dealership that I was unsure of, but I trusted the salesperson, a friend that I’ve known for more than a dozen years and his “brand” is excellent.

Most radio advertising campaigns, heck probably most advertising campaigns on any media, should be brand building, not event oriented sales campaigns.

When I was talking with my sales team about this in a recent meeting, I shared with them a five minute video featuring this guy with a funny accent. He had the research that showed over time businesses that focused on Brand Building instead of the short term sales event advertising messages multiplied their investment. Those that did it the other way never built a trusted reputation and the sad part is that when they had competition that was trusted, they usually lost.

In reality, you need both. The last line in the video says, “Aim for Fame”. The very best ad campaigns use a formula that I learned when I first went from the being on the radio to developing advertising campaigns and it was a four step process that I learned in Detroit at WMUZ and Crawford Broadcasting.

Image Building
General Benefits
Specific Benefits
ReCreation Benefits

I’ll do another article and podcast focused on this formula but the basics is before you make a sales push with your advertising, you need to spend time introducing the company or product.

I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Jeff Schmidt, Senior VP with RAB:

Radio works to create awareness of a brand BEFORE people need it. That is the very purpose of advertising:To help a business become known before they are needed. People don’t respond to ads; they respond to needs. When the guests at a restaurant discover they are hungry and want to go out, that’s when they search their minds for brands they already know. They know them because of the strength of the long-term advertising that is and has been done.

These are the concepts my Local Advertising Sales Team at WOWO Radio have been trained on and we continue to review and tweak our skills. Want our help? Contact me. Scott@WOWO.com

Radio Back On The Road

by Scott Howard | Apr 27, 2021 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

“Nobody listens to regular radio anymore”.

I’ve heard that myth every year for years.

My predecessors, heard a similar myth I’m sure when music became portable.

Phonograph records have been around for more than a century but in order to listen to them, you needed a record player which wasn’t very portable. This changed a few decades ago with the invention of 8 track tapes. My parents could buy an 8 track tape player for their car and listen to an entire record album while driving down the road. People thought that would kill off radio stations. But it didn’t.

8 track players were replaced by cassette tapes and eventually compact discs replaced both tapes and records. The audio systems in our cars continued to evolve as well as the prediction that radio was about to be replaced by these newer, portable ways to listen to music.

Compact Discs were just the beginning of digital music players as iPods and other MP3 players made it possible to have hundreds of songs in your pocket.

And of course the internet was supposed to kill off radio stations too, especially when our cars became connected to the online world.

I mention all of this history for one reason. Like I said at the beginning…

“Nobody listens to regular radio anymore” is just a myth.

1000 adults 18 and older participated in a survey a couple of months ago and here’s some of the details:

According to results from a national CARAVAN survey conducted by ENGINE Insights for Xperi’s DTS the pandemic has increased the importance of the personal vehicle and in-dash infotainment today, versus pre-COVID. The study says this is especially true for Millennials and Gen Z.

Now you might think that they want to be able to connect to the internet while they are driving. Not so fast.

According to the study, radio is indispensable or highly important to seven out of ten vehicle owners, with nearly 80 percent of Millennials valuing radio in the dashboard. Also, nine out of ten vehicle owners say it is important to have radio in their dashboard, with over half wanting it as the anchor of their media diet.

What about satellite radio? Wasn’t that supposed to be the wave of the future?

Four in five vehicle owners (79 percent) feel it is very important that listening choices in their vehicle are free (radio/podcasts/etc.) versus subscription based.

Surely podcasts then are going to kill off radio stations.

Nope, the vast majority of podcasts have a teeny tiny audience and last less than a year. Similar to what I observed when blogging was the hot new internet sensation 15 years ago. The podcasts that have staying power and a significant audience are those linked to broadcast radio stations.

It was ten years ago that I walked away from a successful job in the radio business and joined a website firm. I came back to radio less than a year later. I left radio again and worked full time in social media, but in 2013 returned once again in radio to stay. See, when I was working outside of this business there was something I continued to do.

Listen to the radio as I drove to my internet job.

Last month, my radio station, WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana had a birthday. WOWO turned 96 years old on March 31st and it’s not about to be irrelevant. Besides our news and talk hosts and anchors doing their regular radio shows, they have podcasts too. Not to replace what they do on the radio, but to supplement it. We also podcast the interviews so listeners can listen later or share too.

Want to know more? Contact me. Scott@WOWO.com

« Older Entries

Next Entries »