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June 07, 2011

Comments

Richard Harker

Jeff, thanks for your contribution to the discussion.

You've raised some good points that we've addressed in a follow-up post. I'm sure you're familar with the phrase "nothing kills a bad product faster than good marketing." We believe that, and we also believe the opposite, that nothing helps a good product better than marketing.

We have to start with good radio, or nothing else matters, but once you have it, you need to tell people about it.

Jeff Vidler

Great analysis, Richard.

This reminds me of the old conventional wisdom that it’s difficult to increase both TSL and cume at the same time - that if you take steps to increase cume, your TSL will shrink, and vice versa. I’ve run the analysis on this one and, in fact, stations that go up in cume are more likely to increase their TSL than stations whose cume is flat or goes down. Even though stations that try extend their appeal too far can put their TSL at risk, there is a greater factor at play. And that’s simply that good radio is good radio.

Not 100% sure I buy into your conclusion that “the single most important tool to grow an audience” and cume is external marketing. Again, I’d say good radio is. And, of course, radio hasn’t been investing in that much these days either.

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