ADVERTISING AND THE RADIO BROADCASTING

In the evaluating radio along with other media of communication, such as newspapers, magazines, billboards, skywriting, weekly supplement match cover, etc., the advertiser is concerned with the following criteria: 1). Circulation, 2). Effectiveness of the medium to sell his product, and Cost.

Circulation

When advertiser buy time on radio they do so because they are impressed with the wide circulation that radio can give to their advertising message. A commercial message delivered on a popular radio program. In Local advertising, the advertiser compares the circulation offered by the local radio stations with that offered by local newspapers. Circulation related to the number of people who are exposed to the advertiser's message. In Radio, circulation is influenced by the potential coverage offered by the station by virtue of its transmitting power, the general programming popularity of the station, the popularity of the program on which the advertising message is presented, the popularity of adjacent program and the attractiveness of the advertising message itself. It is therefore be expected that advertisers who buy radio time will generally seek to have commercial messages appear on program that reach the largest audience.

Effectiveness

Each advertising medium has its own special characteristic of communication that make advertising in it more less effective. Some advertising media are better for certain types of advertising than other media. Brand-name identification is often sought through repeated radio announcements. No advertising medium, however, can show a product to potential buyers. Many advertiser have found that radio provided them wth an opportunity to demonstrate their product and deliver a sales mesagge to millions of people that otherwise can only be done over the counter to a few people at a time. Moreover, the association of the advertising message with a popular program can give the advertiser additional values : goodwill engendered by the program itself ; identification with the program and the program talent that often is used for point-of-sales merchandising purpose; direct sales appeals by the stars, special attention to the advertiser's message through lead-ins designed to invited attention; and strategic placement of the message.

Cost

In evaluation the cost of advertising in relation to its effectiveness, advertisers are often forced to work with variable factors that make its very difficult to arrive at a scientific judgement. Ideallym the advertiser desires to know which methode of advertising producers the greates number of sales of his products at the smalles cost. Because he ussually has several different advertising campaigns proceeding simultaneously and beacause the effectiveness of his own commercial message is not a controlled factor when different media are compared, the advertiser generally contents himself with taking the simple circulation fidures, dividing them by thousand. and dividing that fidure into the cost of buying the broadcast time and the program arrive at a figure representing how much it costs to reach 1000 people.