Over the next few weeks, as 2003 draws to a close, radioinfo will bring you some snapshots of the year in radio from various points of view. This ‘Year in Review’ series begins by looking at one of the most significant factors in regional radio this year – the drought, from the point of view of a regional General Manager.
3SR/SUN FM General Manager Graham Cross has resigned to take a break from radio after “a tough 19 months” of drought in his area, but, as he works through his final few days he took time to give radioinfo readers an insight into the drought from his station’s point of view.
Like most of regional radio, Shepparton’s 3SR and Sun FM (RG Capital stations), have felt the effects of Australia’s prolonged drought in many ways, but sales has been hardest hit. Some commentators have said that the rural community around Shepparton will take 9 years to fully recover from the effects of this drought.
“We’re coming out of it now, but it’s been tough,” says Cross. “Businesses directly related to rural industries just stopped advertising.”
“Good businesses in the towns have been OK, but anything directly related to rural industries has done it hard.”
According to Cross, the station’s sales people worked hard to cope with the downturn. “You just have to accept the fact that some people can’t advertise, but you can’t stop there, you have to go looking for new business.”
Cross has encouraged his account managers to go prospecting for new business during the hard times. “Some people don’t like so many ‘nos.’ In sales you get used to bouncing back from a ‘no,’ but you can only take so much.”
Cross says its been hard to find and keep good sales people in the situation the station has faced recently and that this is a problem faced by all regional radio stations. Attracting experienced senior sales people is also a difficult task.
“Churn of sales people is a big problem in this industry. If you can get a sales person past the first 12 months then the rewards start coming for the person and for the station. But it’s been hard to do that in this climate.”
“And with young inexperienced sales people joining the team, the Sales Manager becomes very important. It’s essential that regional stations get experienced radio sales people into Sales Management roles, because they have to lead the less experienced ones a lot.”
The station has a mixture of locals and out-of-towners in its sales force and is expecting a new Sales Manager in the new year.
3SR has narrowed its target audience recently, now targeting the 35-54 demographic, compared with in the past when it tried for 25-54s. It has a Classic Hits format. Sun FM is a contemporary format which remains targeted at 18-39s. Glen Killorn is the Program Director and he has recently revamped the music content of the stations to further focus on the target demographics.
ABC regional stations have also felt the effects of the drought, with regional presenters from many areas telling radioinfo that they could not report on the difficulties faced by farmers without sharing their pain. In some areas ABC presenters and rural reporters felt they were playing the role of counsellor rather than interviewer.
In recent weeks, rain has been falling in most Eastern States and the mood has turned optimistic again, but the last two years has been a constant reminder of just how knife edged it is to live and run a business on the land in regional Australia.
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