It's not limited to radio. Some night, you should check out the ads on the
networks' nightly newscasts... you'll see a disproportional number of ads
for patent medicines covering all kinds of gross conditions.

-Steve


I purposely didn't mention the kind of radio, just because it seems to
be on all of it, but just curious, what kind of decent ads do you
hear? Maybe they're just slipping past me.

Lee, you were right about my radio group not being one of the big ones. It
was owned by a local businessman who had other business interests but no
other stations.

The owner's philosophy was similar to that of Clear Channel, To him, it was
all about the bottom line, no matter what.

When I went to work for him, he owned the top station in the area. Then he
bought the competitor. And then he started dismantling both. He let all the
high-paid jocks go, automated the stations and hired minimum-wage baby
sitters to watch the computer and throw in occasional weather and liners.

Obviously sales dropped, but since expenses dropped even more, then he
remains happy. I got out on the way down, and I'm so thankful to be gone!

Oh, the stations are a joke now. There's dead air on any at any given time.
His son is the chief engineer, so no one is pressuring anyone for the sorry
sound and performance.

Lee, you were right about my radio group not being one of the big ones. It
was owned by a local businessman who had other business interests but no
other stations.

The owner's philosophy was similar to that of Clear Channel, To him, it was
all about the bottom line, no matter what.

When I went to work for him, he owned the top station in the area. Then he
bought the competitor. And then he started dismantling both. He let all the
high-paid jocks go, automated the stations and hired minimum-wage baby
sitters to watch the computer and throw in occasional weather and liners.

Obviously sales dropped, but since expenses dropped even more, then he
remains happy. I got out on the way down, and I'm so thankful to be gone!

Oh, the stations are a joke now. There's dead air on any at any given time.
His son is the chief engineer, so no one is pressuring anyone for the sorry
sound and performance.

Lee, you were right about my radio group not being one of the big ones. It
was owned by a local businessman who had other business interests but no
other stations.

The owner's philosophy was similar to that of Clear Channel, To him, it was
all about the bottom line, no matter what.

When I went to work for him, he owned the top station in the area. Then he
bought the competitor. And then he started dismantling both. He let all the
high-paid jocks go, automated the stations and hired minimum-wage baby
sitters to watch the computer and throw in occasional weather and liners.

Obviously sales dropped, but since expenses dropped even more, then he
remains happy. I got out on the way down, and I'm so thankful to be gone!

I'm guessing that one of the first things this guy got rid of was the
copywriter, if there was one. Why not let the sales people write the copy.
Here's why. Even the relatively few competent sales people are not
necessarily competent copywriters. And the cluless ones are, well, cluless.
One reason that advertising sales evaporate is lack of results. And
pointless, boring, clumsy ad copy does not produce results for the adverser.

If you are listening to a radio station and you hear "for all your
(advertiser's product) needs," "(holiday or event) is upon us," "save, save,
save," or just a mindless husband/wife or boss/secretary conversation
crammed with stilted (client's business) jargon, you can be pretty sure that
the commercial was written by the account exec or, worse, the client.
Besides being generally ineffective advertising, the hours a salesperson
spends agonizing over crappy copy add up to time not spent doing his/her
real job: selling advertising.

Lee


--
To e-mail, replace "bucketofspam" with "dleegordon"

Lee... I am impressed! You are right. The first thing our owner did WAS fire
the copywriter.

At that time, the station's commercials were so far ahead of any station
within 100 miles. At first, I couldn't put my finger on the reason. Then I
got to know our copywriter and found out that all those good ideas were
coming out of that one young lady. Give her the facts, and she could whip
out a commercial in a couple of minutes. And it worked! Those spots were
dynamite!

But it appeared to the owner that our copywriter was merely a drain on the
bottom line. She didn't sell anything, didn't produce anything (that he
could see), and only seemed to look busy maybe an hour or so each day. So he
fired her.

That's when it became real obvious just how important that copywriter had
been to our station.

After that, all the spots were at best, mediocre. Our sales people were
stuck writing spots when they could be selling. And the ones they wrote were
often worse than that of a grade school student. I tried writing spots
myself, and I was so slow and terrible at it that I quickly abandoned that
idea.

Hats off to anyone who can write good radio.

Back in the late Fifties, when I was the CE for an Arkansas AM kilowatter, the
station had a big book of ad copy. All one had to do was to fill in the blanks.

In return for my on call engineering service, I got a stipend and all the free
ads for my TV service shop they could fit in.

The DJs were students at the adjacent college. My favorite DJ, who had the best
voice, loved to cut commercials for me. They were great. And their results were
great, too! G

In recent years, I heard an ad on a mom and pop station that came out of that
book. It begins, "There's Spring in the air." So the book is still around.

Bill in SE Texas

Hats off to anyone who can write good radio.

It's easy. Or impossible, depending upon your skill set. g

Lee


--
To e-mail, replace "bucketofspam" with "dleegordon"

I wrote: In recent years, I heard an ad on a mom and pop station that came
out of that [ad copy] book. It begins, "There's Spring in the air."

Oops! I meant, "There's MUSIC in the air!"

I had a special deal to repair a radio with each TV I repaired. Immediately
following the above pronouncement, the DJ put in a bar or two of lilting music
before continuing speaking out the ad.

Bill, K5BY