The True Value Of Radio Imaging

The tremendous value that radio imaging has in branding your radio stations is a given. Radio imaging instantly tells your listeners everything you want them to know about you. Radio imaging says who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

Have you ever thought about it's true value?

The true value of radio imaging is the value your General Sales Manager would place on the airtime if a client wished to purchase it. In other words, how much would it cost a client to buy the radio imaging airtime?

To understand the true value, and importance of your radio imaging we need to convert airtime to dollars and cents.

A typical station plays one promo every hour, equivalent to one sixty second commercial. Radio stations also play around five sweepers an hour, equivalent to four fifteen second commercials. Let's extrapolate:

Daily: 24 Promos & 120 Sweepers
Monthly: 720 Promos, & 3,600 Sweepers
Yearly: 8,760 Promos, 43,800 Sweepers

The question is: If the radio station had to buy this time from itself, what would it charge? With an average rate of $60 per promo, and $30 per Sweeper the total cost of radio imaging on an average radio stations is:

$1.8 Million Dollars.

Wow, that's a lot of bling.

Now imagine if a client wanted to make that investment in your station today, how would you handle it? After the GSM picked his drooling tongue up off the floor, I assume you would have your top sales guy schmoozing this client like they never had before. Your best creative idea personnel would swing into action and begin developing creative concepts and ideas that would keep this client coming back for more. In short no stone would be left unturned to make sure this major client was satisfied.

When it comes to the branding of your radio station, the value equation is no different. It's still $1.8 million dollars worth of branding and publicity.

Are you giving your radio imaging campaigns the attention and time they deserve? Are your best idea people working on developing creative concepts, and ideas for your radio brand? Have you invested in the best voice talents, and producers available? Are you devoting time to developing quality script ideas?

In this day and age of overburdened Program Directors it is way too easy to pass off your radio imaging responsibilities to the night guy for them to just bang out at the end of a shift. Should $1.8 million dollars of branding and publicity be an afterthought? Clearly the answer is no.

Radio imaging must be a priority in your daily routine as much as selecting the songs you play is a priority. Imagine if you only updated your playlist once a quarter? That would never happen, right? Yet some radio stations only update their radio imaging once per quarter which is equally as foolish.

Great radio stations like KUBL Salt Lake, KIIM Tucson, and WIVK Knoxville, all choose to tackle radio imaging head on, and devote considerable resources to the effort.

In order to stimulate creative thought in radio imaging, we have developed the Krash Creative Solutions Production Blog. The KCS blog is full of creative radio imaging ideas, and examples. These are ideas that you can use right now to improve your station sound.