Matt Mallon, general sales manager at radio station KABC-AM (790), is turning up the volume.
The 40-year-old Mallon was recently named chairman of the Southern California Broadcasters Association’s general sales managers council. He’ll be taking over at a particularly volatile time for L.A. radio.
The most significant factor will be the shift by Arbitron, the company that tracks radio listeners’ choices, to a Portable People Meter measurement gauge. The current ratings period is the last one in which listeners will provide a classic “diary,” writing down what they listened to. The new system electronically tracks how many people are within range of the station’s broadcast signal, whether they are really “listening,” or just present.
The ratings are crucial, of course. Advertising agencies base their decisions on where to put their clients’ dollars based on those numbers.
“We’ll see if any station takes a truck with a microphone down to the beach to jack up their numbers,” joked Mallon, who’s confident the new system will work. “The agencies still want ears, and we can provide them.”
The next presidential election is likely to bring waves of political ads and soon according to Mallon.
“With the primary in February, and both races wide open, the ads could start as early as December,” he said.
Mallon, who lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife and two children, is confident that radio, particularly talk stations like KABC, will have a place in the new, Internet-dominated media landscape.
“It may be streaming audio on the computer or a podcast, but there is always going to be a market for content that is local and relevant. It does put some pressure on us to be sharp and on-topic,” he said.
Waffling?
When the IHOP Corp. recently purchased the bar and grill chain Applebee’s for $2.1 billion, Chief Executive Julia Stewart made it clear she planned to turn the more than 500 Applebee’s restaurants into franchises, a strategy that paid big dividends with the International House of Pancakes. But what about the big question: Will diners be able to order up a short stack of flapjacks at Applebee’s anytime soon? “That’s not something Ms. Stewart wants to address at this point,” according to an IHOP spokesman.
On Second Thought
If you had your heart set on visiting Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills by making the top bid at the Jewish National Fund’s Oct. 11 auction mentioned in this space two weeks ago, you’ll have to make another plan. The group has taken the trip off the auction list after receiving a number of complaints that linking with men’s magazine was in bad taste, despite first defending the prize.
Todd Cunningham is the assistant managing editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected]
