Friday Poll: Does Your Station "Own" School Closings in Your Mar

    • 1373 posts
    February 6, 2014 11:35 PM PST

    Happy Friday, everyone!

    This week's poll question was suggested by Joel Swanson of Aberdeen, SD:

    Does your station "own" school closings in your market?  Do you monetize them through a sponsorship?

    The background to this question is an article that Joel shared with me:

    School Closings: Can Radio Still Own This?  The subject of school closings and the role this “traditional” feature should play on air remains a question among radio programmers even as we enter the 14th year of the 21st century and get deeper and deeper into the digital era.  Should radio hang on to this franchise and not give that ground up to TV?  According to noted AC radio consultant Gary Berkowitz, “Sorry to say but radio already lost this one.  TV and local school systems have taken it.”  In the new edition of his newsletter, AC Programming Today, Berkowitz writes, “Between TV’s ability to run a crawl on the bottom of the screen, their digital assets and local government hi-tech systems, it’s moved on.  Just this morning I experienced it when I clicked on the local NBC affiliate’s (WDIV) app and all the school closings (there were hundreds of them) were there in alphabetical order.”  However, according to Berkowitz all is not completely lost.  The good news comes down to one word: Digital!  He says radio can still 1) text databases that inform about schools that are closed; 2) develop a station app for bad weather and emergencies; and 3) direct them to your website where they can, with one click, call up their school system and see if it’s open or closed.  Most importantly, Berkowitz advises stations to make this information easy to get, available anytime and make sure to promote it on the air.  He concludes, “If we are going to participate, one thing’s for sure; we must get our digital assets up, working and promoted because the days of reading long lists of school closings are long gone from radio.” 

    In view of the extreme winter weather that most of the country has been experiencing, this is a most timely topic -- thanks, Joel!  Looking forward to reading your replies!

    • 83 posts
    February 7, 2014 5:09 AM PST

    I agree completely with Gary (above), however our stations do monitize our "Closing Patrol" by announcing closings, delays, etc. every 10 minutes during the morning hours (6-9a) and we post them on our closing patrol web page on our web site.  Sponsors get mentioned during each CP announcemenet, we we put a linked banner ad on the web page.  Sponsors pay $700 for the season, and we have 8 sponsors this season.  They're getting a good deal this winter, that's for sure!

    • 1 posts
    February 7, 2014 6:27 AM PST

    I don't agree that we have lost this one - at least not in the rural area in which I work.  What makes radio relevant is to stay local.  I work for a group that prides themselves on being a local/community group of stations and people love us for it.  We haven't lost revenue in the economic downturn, and our ratings have continued to stay incredibly strong.  People tune in the to listen for the closings and we have lots of people who sponsor them.  If you choose to watch TV - You must sit there and watch for it to scroll by (Which can take some serious time) rather then going about your morning and getting ready and just listening as you do so.  They don't say which ones are closed on TV - They scroll them by.  Radio (at least in this area) is a clear winner for school closings. 

    • 26 posts
    February 7, 2014 6:35 AM PST

    The Market I'm in is a little bizarre -- Its a combined TV market and all the stations focus on the other half of the market, but it is very much a separate radio market.

    The have a school closing page on all our station sites that is sponsored and easy to find. We also promote this heavily. Typically they only highlight the big ones on air, then direct listeners to the closings site.

    • 16 posts
    February 7, 2014 7:51 AM PST

    Something that I have been trying to bring on board here at our radio group is a "School Closing Club" of sorts in the form of text messaging updates. My thought would be that we can send out a text message once every 30 minutes (if new updates are available) to a list of subscribed listeners. We would promote the service on air and online leading up to the winter months. 

    This KAT Country school closings/weather update brought to you by Bobby's Landscape Management and Snow Removal. 

    South - Closed. 
    North - 2 Hour Late Start. 
    City Public Elem - Closed. 

    Etc. 

    I have been fighting with.. "management barriers" on nearly everything digital so it's tough to get something going. But that's a different story

    • 39 posts
    February 7, 2014 12:39 PM PST

    We have a special number that we promote. People can call it and get hear the list.

    • 455 posts
    February 7, 2014 2:24 PM PST

    We haven't lost the fight but TV and the school systems themselves are taking this from us...and we're letting them. We must always fight for the business. We must stay engaged with school systems and get them to encourage parents and staff to listen to station WXYZ to find out about school closings first. 

    TV is really cashing in on some things radio used to dominate: Morning news, traffic, etc.