In
last week's article titled “Google's First Year With DMarc
Educational,” we did not include information on competition they
face from other automated radio sales firms.
One
such company is SoftWave Media Exchange which allows marketers to
choose stations and schedule their campaigns well ahead of time.
Likewise, station managers can set prices and review campaigns
before they run.
These capabilities have helped SoftWave build a network of stations
in the top 50 markets that reach about 11 million listeners on an
average quarter-hour basis, compared with dMarc’s 947,000. Most
importantly though, station managers are comfortable selling premium
inventory through SoftWave, since about 70% of its traffic falls in
this category.
Additionally, Bid4Spots, a Los Angeles-based digital clearinghouse,
employs a reverse-auction model in which multiple stations compete
to sell their remnant inventory to a single buyer during weekly
online auctions.
Because stations have nothing to lose when unloading unwanted
inventory, they drive prices down during the auctions...benefiting
the buyers. There are more than 2,300 stations participating
nationwide in the Bid4Spots system.
