[BC] Stupid cross-promo of competitors

[WFIFeng@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/26/2005 7:40:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
david at onlinetonight.com writes:

> And you also
>  fought tooth and nail and refused to air promos from your other group-owned
>  local stations.

We cross-promote our own stations fairly often. Each one is in a different 
state, so there is little-to-no coverage overlap. Even if there were, if they 
are listening to, and supporting, *one* of our stations, they are supporting us 
*all*.

>  Yeah, I didn't think so.

Oops... your arrogance is showing.

>  Just because someone installs satellite radio in their cars or homes 
doesn't
>  mean they don't turn to your station when you have something they want.

Unfortunately for us, that isn't an option after sunset. They can get 24 hour 
service from the satcaster, but not from us. If they want to listen to 
Christian radio after 8pm or before 6am, (summer hours) they cannot listen to us. In 
winter, the hours are even worse, as we're only on the air from 7:15am to 
5pm. That's the penalty of being a Daytimer. To 'TOP it off (pun intended) WTOP 
quite effectively obliterates us on both ends of the day. Our signal is 7mv/m 
at my house, and on many winter mornings or evenings, they trash it quite 
effectively.

> To
>  refuse satellite radio dollars with the excuse that you're promoting a
>  competitor is to tilt at windmills - if you're going to refuse one
>  competitor on your moral high horse, you should be isolationist enough to
>  refuse them all.

Your arrogance is showing, again. We were refusing to promote this *direct 
competition* long before Howard ever got there, so "morals" had nothing to do 
with the decision.

>  So...don't do that. Don't position yourselves as the whining cry baby that
>  is "losing market share" and "refusing to promote the competitor".

We're saying nothing. How does that make us "whining"?

>  I would suggest that instead being busy for busy's sake and using defensive
>  sales-based measures that, in the end, harm your bottom line

What would be far more harmful to our bottom line, long term? How could 
accepting a few hundred dollars of ads, which could cost us several dozen listeners 
(permanently) be a good idea? Once those listeners are gone, they'd be hard 
to bring back, especially considering the severe limitations of the format and 
medium we are using. We're refusing a small, short-term gain for a long-term 
benefit.

>  you take that
>  same energy and use offensive programming-based efforts to make your on air
>  product better, promote what makes you special, remind listeners of your
>  unique attributes

We already are doing this. Remember: we have two strikes against us: being on 
AM, and being Daytime only. It's tough to overcome that when you're also busy 
telling your listeners that they don't have to deal with that by just tuning 
elsewhere.

Willie...