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Being a C-level executive in this business comes with a lot of responsibility. We think about the business side of it all the time, but what about the human side? That is what Tina Murley has to think about right now.
Murley is the Chief Revenue Officer at Beasley Media Group. Her role is usually all about numbers and maximizing fiscal opportunities.
But Beasley owns stations in multiple markets in both North Carolina and Florida. That means Murley is thinking about more than just ad spend. She is focused on the people that work in those local buildings, what they need, what their clients need, and how Beasley can help the communities that have been decimated by catastrophic storms and flooding.
While we do talk about election spending, Nielsen’s recent measurement adjustments, and more, a lot of this week’s conversation in the Meet the Leaders series presented by Point-to-Point Marketing focuses on the human and fiscal realities of preparing for and recovering from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
DEMETRI RAVANOS: Do you see a path forward for radio in the subscription space? It would certainly be a way to generate new revenue, but it would require the audience to think about the medium and its content differently than they ever had before.
TINA MURLEY: Yeah, I think there is a path forward, but I think it requires going over some hurdles, right? It would depend on the content, like if it was spoken word, it would be easier. If it had to do with music though, there’s the licensing agreements and ASCAP/BMI and all of that you have to overcome to move to a subscription model.
DR: Something that music stations have done and had a lot of success with for decades is the station concert. I know that in Boston you guys have had success with ticketed events around the Sports Hub. Are there other ways to think about what those spoken-word format stations can do to create live shows?
TM: I think that’s where the real opportunity is.
What we’ve done on some of our sports stations, we’ve done like X and O kind of events at high end steakhouses where people that are superfans of football, basketball, hockey or what have you can actually have an intimate event with maybe the play-by-play voice of one of those teams. We could bring in a professional athlete to talk about what it was like in the playoffs or various roster changes. We’ve done things successfully like that in Boston, and there’s always a huge appetite for that.
DR: What about a branding play over something you control completely? A Hot AC station could bring John Mayer to town, for instance. The station doesn’t own John Mayer, but you get his fans associating something they love with your brand. Is there value in the spoken word version of that?
Could a news or sports station see benefits by bringing in a popular podcast or TV personality and letting them do their thing? Even without a presence on stage, the station still gets a win, right?
TM: Yes, but there’s more risk in that. So typically, if we do a concert, we do it two different ways. We’ll either partner with [a company such as] Live Nation. They take the risk for the venue and the act. We become the media sponsor so we can activate on site with title sponsorships, promos on the air, activation booths on site at the concert. That’s typically the way we do it.
The other way we do it is we’ll do small guitar panels. We’ll bring in three or four artists to do an acoustic, very intimate venue experience that we will sell tickets to, and we’ll do ticket stops. So, we can sell it to local retailers. “Go into X with retailer to buy your ticket to the show.” So, we are utilizing that on both ends of the spectrum.
DR: As Nielsen changes the way listeners are measured, certainly ratings will rise. Those new, higher numbers – are they meaningful if it’s the result of a change in measurement versus an influx of new listeners?
TM: I’m actually on the Audio Alliance board. Nielsen is really just evening the playing field for radio right now.
It’s a 15 minute increment. You need to keep a listener for five minutes to get credit. They’re shortening that to three minutes. If you think about it, we’re competing with digital and digital gets credit even if it’s a few seconds. This levels that out and gives us credit for the actual listening that we have.
Now, we do expect ratings to increase. It would probably be by about 20%.
DR: The point about leveling the playing field is valid. I won’t argue otherwise. I guess my question would be, is measuring the exact same way as digital audience the best move?
Could the smarter path be for radio to sell itself as something digital isn’t? There is more of an investment from the audience. Admittedly, most of my experience is on the spoken word side, so that is going to shape the way I see this, but is there more of a value in selling radio for the long-form investment from the listeners as opposed to ‘here is a ten second TikTok that I’m literally just flipping past?’
TM: Yeah, we always have sold that we have a relationship with our local community, right? Our listeners feel like they are friends with that talent on their favorite station, whether it be spoken word or music. On the digital side, it’s large and impersonal.
So, I think that is an advantage for radio and it’s bridging that with digital. It’s getting those personal influencers and the talent that have the relationship with the audience and extending that onto digital. It could be a co-branded social campaign that we’re taking a popular DJ in Philadelphia and kind of putting out there on social, extending it that way as opposed to the sometimes vanilla way that digital does it, which is just basically a billboard, right?
DR: Speaking of digital, I’ve noticed that the candidates in this year’s election are embracing digital shows and podcasts for getting their messaging out. Kamala Harris goes on All the Smoke and Call Her Daddy and Donald Trump is on Twitter with Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson. But what about in spending? Have you noticed a change or a migration at all from political spending in 2020 versus this year?
TM: The biggest change is the introduction of OTT [over the top video services like Peacock, PrimeTV and Netflix]. Most candidates did not spend there. There was basically no OTT spending in the 2020 election. Now, with people cutting the cord and TV ratings on the decline, we are seeing more of a shift toward OTT and really geo targeting their video commercials.
Radio, I would say the share is probably the same, but the spending is up this election.
DR: Can you compare this election to 2020, or do you have to look back at 2016 to get a better comparison because of the extraordinary circumstances that we were all dealing with last time around?
TM: We do both. So, when I forecasted for the 2024 election, I did take things into consideration like we probably aren’t going to have a Georgia runoff. We’re not going to have an influx of spending from Tom Steyer, from Bloomberg, two really wealthy presidential candidates. So, when I forecasted for this year, I looked at all of those factors.
I also looked at the states that we have that are swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, even North Carolina. So really looking at kind of where the money was going to forecast it.
As a company, we forecasted it to be down slightly, but obviously I’m thinking I conservatively forecasted it. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll get back to 2020 levels.
DR: You mentioned North Carolina. Obviously, you guys have stations there. You have stations down in Florida. What is corporate’s role in preparing these areas for major disasters like we’ve seen with the two hurricanes, and then supporting the local teams through the aftermath?
TM: It’s all hands on deck right now. Our stations in Boston and Philadelphia have it wired so that they can actually input orders and approve orders from remote locations. We have our engineering staff that are proactively getting our generators running because it’s not ‘if we’re going to lose power’. It’s ‘when we get power back’.
It’s also about programing, getting messages out to the community of how to stay safe. We’re using our RDF in-dashboard messaging to alert the community of when it’s time to evacuate.
We’ve partnered with the Red Cross to raise money to help in the aftermath of Helene and in preparing for Milton as well.
So, it’s really everything from PR to engineering to sales, security and just supporting our people by making sure that our people are safe and that they don’t feel like they have to go in and be in harm’s way when a massive storm like this is coming.
DR: I don’t want to minimize what it is that individuals in the area have to do right now, I live in North Carolina. I’ve seen everything that has happened in the wake of Helene, but I do wonder if someone in your role has to talk to local sellers about how to serve their clients in a time like this?
TM: Here’s a perfect example of something that we’re putting together. Everyone’s first thoughts after something like Helene happens is you need a roof, or you need somebody to pump out your basement. There’s a lot of needs that the community has. So, we’re building resources that will do that, that will connect the people that have those skills with the people that need them.
It’s like guides – either hurricane preparedness or reconstruction and really getting those resources into the right hands. We can bring resources to our advertisers who are looking for those businesses and then also be a resource to the community that’s in desperate need of those services.
DR: Given that you guys do have a large presence in North Carolina and in Florida, does this change what your projections will be when it comes to that end of year holiday spending on the station?
TM: It’s going to shift the categories we will see. Typically after storms like this, we experienced one in Fort Myers, what happens is we see an influx of spending afterwards because there’s so much destruction that needs to be repaired. There’s such a need for the services that I described.
So, you may see, for example, restaurant and entertainment spending may go down. Leisure spending may go down, but home improvement and home services skyrockets, typically after these disasters.
To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at tim@ptpmarketing.com or 513-702-5072.
Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
