Google Gives up on Radio Sales

[NE Miss Radio]

Address of article in Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124172645603997429.html

[TheBigA]

I agree with a lot of what I read in this article.

The aspect that bothered me was how worked up the radio folks got.  Jerry Del Colliano was ranting for weeks about how radio was making a deal with the devil.  I knew that Google was going to get the table scraps, after the GEICOs and other bottom feeders were done.  But the haters circled the wagons, and jumped to the conclusions that the radio companies were going to fire all their sales staffs and replace them with Google.  The reality is that the company has no risk with a commission salesman.  The salesman either sells their draw, or they get fired.  That's why stations sometimes overhire salesmen.  Replacing local salesmen with an automation system wasn't going to save any money.  Everyone knew that.  Plus the Google automation system was crap.  So we should all be happy that radio did the right thing here.  But in the process, we lost a possible investor who had the power to bring radio into the 21st century.  There are fewer and fewer companies left in this country who have the resources, the technology, and the interest to replace a lot of the current radio owners and actually have a vision for the future. Google is one of those companies, and now they're very unlikely to touch radio again.  To them, they've been there and done that, and got a black eye.

[H82BL8]

Google may have gotten a black eye, but only because they picked the wrong commodity to automate for sales.

Just wait. When they figure out who really wants to pay for time, they will circle the wagons and be back with a vengence like you've never seen before.

[pocket-radio]

Google couldn't figure out how to measure radio, like the web. Google also underestimated the impact of humans. Maybe an automated system works well for companies like GEICO, but a human being must still call on the local car dealer. Selling advertising to the lowest bidder serves to drive your average rate and revenues down! We still sell value, though thanks to Clear Channel it all sounds the same..

Commoidites are like items, such as beans or coffee and the only thing that seperates them is price.
Have we reached that point, yet? We might be close.