SYNDICATION 101... The Power Of Large Prospecting Numbers
One of the things people complain about when we explain to them how they need to go about getting more stations is, "why do we have to go after so many stations at once?... It's so expensive... can't we just do five or ten stations at a time and build it up slowly?" The answer is of course, no.
Most people we talk to have tried to do this, and they top out around 5 to 15 small AM stations after a year or two. Why? Because the lack of interest at the stations... "The stations just don't respond" they say.
But it's not their job to respond. It's YOUR job to give them something to respond to. And what do they respond to most?... mass quantities of people. After all, they are in the mass media business. They want (like they say in music promotion) to create a hit. A hit show will make both the station and the advertisers look good. But a hit is not just a few stations... it's a lot of stations around the country, doing the same thing at the same time, with the same programming. Simple, but tough to do.
Example: You are a program director, and I make my weekly call to you to give you more reasons to take my show. If I am only going after a total of ten stations (and you are one of them), what's the best news I could possibly have for you this week? Maybe that one, two, or (at most) five new stations came on in the last month? You would not be impressed by such small growth.
However, If I am going after 500 stations, then I'm going to be able to tell you something like "Hey, 50 new stations so far this month, and WXYZ just came on about an hour ago!" To you, it now seems like there is much more growth occurring (50!), and so you are going to take a much closer look at the show. Amazingly, however, the show is the same; it's only the number of stations that I am pushing to that has changed.
Result: More people actually take the show, because more people look at the show seriously. Not just more people, but a higher PERCENTAGE of people. If you originally pushed the show to ten stations and got one of them, you might think that if you pushed to 500 you would get 50. But you would actually get MORE than 50, because each of the stations now takes the show more seriously, because each of them sees more growth happening elsewhere. Your exact percentages, of course, will vary.
There are some other things that respond well to a fast growing show: (1) Advertisers are now watching, because they can now see that soon you will have enough reach to be worthwhile, and they want to lock in a good rate before the competition does. (2) Key guests are watching, because they want to get in good with the producer and host, while it's still early. (3) Better production people will be attracted to you, since they want to claim their spot in a fast growing organization. (4) High quality host talent are going to be MUCH more drawn to a fast growing show than they are to a slow one, for obvious reasons.
Note that all these things have nothing to do with the show itself. The show can be long, short, good, bad, loaded with ads or empty, but the mechanics and benefits of growing the show are fully in your control, and are outside the scope of the production of the show itself. What this means is that any show of any type can take advantage of the powers of large prospecting numbers.
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