Month: June 2014

What Radio Stations Can Take From Townsquare Media’s IPO

Townsquare Media has disclosed that it plans to go public. Although this revelation has little to no impact on your radio station, it does allow us to take a deeper look into the operations and revenue from such a “successful” radio group.

 

As I combed through the numbers, there was two interesting key points that I came across. And radio owners and managers need to take notice.

 

1. 26% Of Townsquare’s Revenue Comes From Outside Radio

 

That’s a stunning Townsquare number that’s sure to catch many in the radio industry by surprise. While many public companies are reporting decent growth from digital, events and non-spot revenue, they also admit the total number, compared to over-the-air revenue, is small. For the first quarter of 2014, Townsquare reports in its S1 filing that 26 percent of net revenue was generated from sources other than the sale of terrestrial radio station advertising.

 

2. Chief Content and Digital Officer is the highest paid of all Townsquare Media Executives and Officials

 

The CEO and CFO both made less than Townsquare Media’s Chief Content and Digital Officer over the past two years.

 

These two findings, I believe are what radio owners and managers need to pay attention to. With digital revenues being around 3% of total revenue for the average station nationwide, Townsquare was able to bring this number up to a whopping 26 percent. This would explain why the company is willing to pay their Chief Digital Officer the highest salary in the entire company. With traditional ad revenue relatively flat over the past few years for most radio stations, digital revenue is a stream that is projected to experience rapid growth, and this can be of great significance to many radio stations nationwide.

 

Inside Radio recently reported that the average radio station raked in nearly $167,000 in digital revenue in 2013. As many groups are seeing the benefits of digital, they are quickly directing the sales and hiring efforts to those who specialize in digital.

 

Source for article is Insideradio.com

Our Mobile Apps Are Here… So What’s Next?

It has been 9 months since we purchased a local radio mobile application developer and launched our Mersoft Media division. We have devoted countless hours to developing a unique application that has capabilities that no other radio mobile application in the market can do. (Call us to learn how this is so)

 

With our iPhone platform only having been complete for about 6 weeks, we have signed many clients, including a major network radio client (details coming soon). But now that we are beginning to gain some traction in the market, many are asking us what is next to come, and how can we improve our product or service.

 

We have a long list of capabilities on our technology roadmap, but for the next 90 days, here is what our clients can expect:

 

Advertising Capabilities: Many developers make the mistake of ASSUMING they know what works, and what is in the best interests of their clients without doing their homework first. Your radio station is in the business of growing audience and ultimately selling to that loyal audience. But diluting your product with tacky ads from the onset isn’t in your best interest.
 
We are tackling this issue from a different perspective; by launching many applications, and studying the user’s behavior inside of those applications. Looking at behaviors such as: what pages do they visit? how long do they land on a page? what features do they select? how often do they press play? how often do they come back to the app? how long is the app in the foreground? etc.

 

Knowing this information will give us the insight necessary into creating the most effective ad capabilities, while using the premium real estate on the application. We have some crazy cool ideas for sponsorship capabilities that will blow your audiences’ minds, and have them asking, “How did they do that?”

 

Types of ads can include: start up screen ad, sponsorships, audio/video pre rolls, pop ups, background ads, rotating banners, ads that flip, jump, scroll, and who knows… maybe an ad that may just put dollars in your pocket! 🙂

 

App Cross Promotion: Very few groups that we work with represent a single station, but rather many stations. We have created a way to launch any application that is in the app store from the existing radio station app, so that you can have each station’s app include one-touch access to launch your other station’s apps. Studies show that with cross promotion, usage can increase across all digital streams by up to 30%… more usage means more dollars.

 

Take a look at Yahoo’s app properties for example. Every single one of them has one-touch access to other properties that Yahoo owns. And we give you the same capabilities.

 

We are excited to show you what we have in store. To learn more about how we can help you grow your brand and bottom line, give us a ring at 913-871-6200. And be sure to go into your app store and search for “Mersoft Media Talk Radio” to download a demo application.