Beating Television at Its Own Game

In Essay #6, we outlined how, by using Tapscan’s Multi-Media Ranker, you can compare your cluster’s reach (Total Week or Primes) to the local broadcast television stations. The goal is to show advertisers where they can diversify their budgets for greater reach. In many cases, a radio cluster will have a better total reach than any local television station. This data is based on Scarborough, a single report that measures both local radio and local television.

While winning with Adults 18+ is an incredible overall statement, the position typically is even stronger when one starts to segment the audience to focus on who the advertiser wishes to reach. This is because radio is better than television at targeting many important demographic segments. More on those in future essays.

The first place to look is demographic groups. Even if a radio cluster does not out-reach the local broadcast TV stations on an Adult 18+ basis, they will likely either narrow the gap or out-reach them with advertisers’ most requested demos: Adults 18-34, Adults 18-49, and Adults 25-54. This is because, while radio still delivers these demos, a great deal of broadcast TV viewership is from Adults 50+.

Even more appealing to your advertiser is comparing your cluster’s reach to the local television stations on a product consumption basis. Because Scarborough is the data source, an effective sales rep can compare their cluster’s reach in hundreds of qualitative categories including:

• Plan to buy a new car
• Plan to switch cellular service
• Spent $100+ on groceries in past week

By showing a potential advertiser that your cluster reaches more of their target customers than the individual TV stations, where they are already spending big dollars, an effective sales rep can take a portion (if not all) of the TV budget. This creates new dollars for radio, their station, and themselves.

Facts matter. Using these facts can help you win.