In the parlance of corporate executives, Southern Cross Austereo’s newly appointed Group National Sales Director, Jeremy Simpson “talks the talk” with the best of them. Phrases like “delivering solutions” and “at the end of the day” roll off the tongue like BMWs off the assembly line. Yet not once did he mention the word “challenge” during a lengthy chat with Peter Saxon on where Southern Cross Austereo is and where it’s going.

That’s not to say he doesn’t see any challenges but, so far, it’s all good.

While most mergers between companies this size, with markedly different cultures, are beset with teething problems there seems very little in evidence at SCA. The key on-air lineups remain intact. No executives of consequence have quit. None have been sacked either.

Not only is it business as usual, but it is business better than usual with last Monday’s Nielsen Survey Seven delivering the best results the old Austereo metro stations had seen as group for yonks. The numbers serve to confirm the new entity’s position as arguably the nation’s biggest electronic group.

If there is a challenge for Jeremy Simpson, it is how to maximise what is already a maximised position. Few media sales directors would not be thrilled to swap jobs with him to face just that sort of challenge.

radioinfo: In terms of size and national reach, how does Southern Cross Austereo compare to the other major media outlets like, say, the Nine Network or Fairfax?

Simpson: We now have coverage in every state in the country, whether that be a radio or a television asset, and in every major city and major regional city – whether that be a radio or television asset. Essentially we’re talking about a potential reach of 95% of all of Australia.

radioinfo: Where does that rank SCA?

Simpson: We probably have the largest broadest reach of any of the electronic groups. I can’t speak for the newspaper side because obviously they’ve got national distribution across all states. But we’re up there with the largest of the electronic groups.

radioinfo: If you were the sales director of one of the other Radio networks, would you be worried about the sheer clout that SCA commands?

Simpson: Yes!

radioinfo: In what way?

Simpson: (seriously) What Southern Cross Austereo can now bring to the advertising market is an opportunity to get a true national footprint across Radio. It’s not actually about regional and metro any more. It’s about Radio as a solution for a client – and which particular markets do you want to be in as a result of that. And that gives us great flexibility, not locking you into the five metros but into the five metropolitan cities as well as the major regional centres around the country. You look at Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra and Bendigo and Shepparton and the Gold Coast, they are big major regional towns and cities.

As a radio offering to a client where you can ring one person and get that entire solution across the country – that’s got to be of benefit to an advertiser.

radioinfo: Historically, Radio has been seen as the poor cousin to print and television.  Is this merger a game changer?

Simpson: I don’t think this merger has changed the game. Radio has been evolving over the past five years as an innovative solutions opportunity for clients. I don’t think this merger makes that any different, it just means we can take those solutions across a broader reach of population.

But Radio…the evolution of what they’re doing with content, what they’re doing with content online, the events we’re now organising as a company is actually going beyond radio. It’s actually about entertainment.

radioinfo: Austereo’s last chairman, Peter Harvie, championed the cause of raising Radio’s share of the national ad dollar to over 8%. To what extent do you think this unified sales approach and the sheer size of the audience SCA outlets now command might help to achieve that goal? 

Simpson: With the constant competitive impact of new media, the fragmentation of new media coming in, the fact that Radio is able to maintain its share around eight per cent when most other media have declined by more than a couple of points is actually a testament to the health and strength of Radio per se.

I think that going beyond the 30 seconds (ads) and providing ideas and digital solutions and the creation of specific events such as the Lady Gaga event that we were part of. That’s what’s going to increase the overall radio investment.

radioinfo: When you say you now have a unified sales force, to what extent is that true… do you no longer have separate teams selling regional radio, metro radio, TV and online.

Simpson: At this point in time we continue to have different streams to our business. Absolutely. And in some markets that will continue to be the case. Because in Sydney the sheer size and the number of clients and the volume of business, it’s very hard to put together a TV and Radio sales force because you actually want specialists in each area. 

What we do see is the Radio streamlined between metro and regional as a pretty easy win for us. By combining the sales force there’s one point of contact for all of your Radio solutions.

radioinfo: Where does Flying Emu sit in the scheme of things?

Simpson: You mean The Black Arts?

radioinfo: Is that what they’re called?

Simpson: They’re the creative heart of the organisation. They span both sales and content to absolutely deliver on being first in entertainment media solutions, which is the future of the company. They’re going to come up with some whacky ideas but they all have to be advertiser sensible and commercially based.

radioinfo: Obviously the goal is to increase your stations’ revenue, where will that increase come from mainly, competitors from other Radio networks or from other media? Or will it be increased incrementally by online and other digital media?

Simpson: It is always a fight for share (between stations) in a market. However, as the clear dominant market leader, it is up to us to grow the overall Radio pie. Yes, we will fiercely fight on the streets with our direct competitors. But at the end of the day, it will be up to us to get new money from other parts of the (clients’) marketing budget to put into Radio. That’s how we’re going to get substantial growth.

In our business, it’s not about pinching a bit from ARN or pinching a bit from DMG. It’s actually about where we can get money that traditionally we haven’t seen before. That’s coming from existing traditional media budgets, whether that be from television or print. But it’s also coming from the bottom drawer of marketing directors who are finding money that they are not delivering to traditional media solutions, but rather want some idea led solution to their marketing problem.

radioinfo: Turning to Digital Radio, how are you monetising that at the moment and how long before it stands on its own feet?

Simpson: To be honest, I don’t know what the financial metrics are on Digital Radio. (But as far as sales goes), it’s small and modest to date. But it’s here to stay. We’re all embracing it and, yes, it will give us opportunities going forward.

radioinfo: Where do you see Radio in ten years time, will anyone be buying 30 second schedules anymore?

Simpson: Absolutely. Look, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. The mainstay of this business going forward is that an advertiser wants to get their tailored message across to a particular audience. Other solutions we wrap around that are important because of how they add context to our product. But at the end of the day there is a retail message that needs to get out there. I don’t think that that’s going to change in the short or even medium term. The demise of the 30 second commercial has been around for the last 20 years and it’s still the backbone of our business.

radioinfo: Can you tell us something about how you approach customer service? What are the things that good sales people do to build loyalty with their customers?

Simpson: It all starts with the uncovery process. So if our account managers can form a relationship with a client or indeed, an agency and start that uncovery process about a client’s issues, and how we can then potentially create a solution for that.

Now that uncovery process doesn’t take hours. It takes weeks, and sometimes months and sometimes years. And what we’re seeing is some of those solutions coming out now, that those conversations started a year ago, and no money transacted for a full year until such time as we managed to deliver a solution that suited that particular client at that particular time and they saw the benefit of it.

radioinfo: Survey days are always eagerly awaited in Radio – how  did last Monday’s go down with the sales department?

Simpson: Last Monday was a great day for us!

radioinfo: How does a great survey result like that impact on sales? Do orders come in next day?

Simpson: Obviously for our sales people that’s a big boost to them going into the market and promoting the brands that we have. Do we see money roll in the next day? No. Does it set us up for some of the major contractual negotiations for the next 12 months? Absolutely!

As an aside, with the merged business, I’ll give you a little insight as to what it meant to some of the people who haven’t been involved in a radio survey before, which is some of our TV people. On Monday we went upstairs and we had Adam Laing and Jamie Angel who presented the results. And our TV guys hadn’t worked on station before and they had an incredible sense of excitement really understood that ‘I’m in this dynamic company. I want to be in such a working medium.’ I saw the look on their faces and that was priceless.

From a morale perspective it’s brilliant. From a metrics and cost per thousand, obviously that’s going to be a benefit to us. The success of Triple M, which has been slowly building all year and finally cracking it. It’s a big benchmark going forward.

It’s an incredibly exciting time for this organisation. What we’ve been able to achieve in a very short space of time in the past few months has been nothing short of miraculous. We’ve moved five offices across the country and over a hundred people. And certainly the interaction between the companies in merger has been almost seamless.

If this is the result of the first six months, imagine what will happen in the next twelve!