Weekly Spots

POSTED: April 11, 2011

(White Plains, NY) April 11, 2011 – According to Arbitron, Orlando, Florida is the 35th largest radio market with a population of 1,529,300.

• At the height of the Seminole Wars in the 1830’s, the US Army established Fort Gatlin to protect settlers from Native American attacks. The Civil War saw an influx of growth and development that included cattle and cotton. The town of Orlando was incorporated in 1875 and was named after Orlando Reeves, a guard at the first fort.

• The city of Orlando is a major industrial and hi-tech center. The metro area has a $13.4 billion technology industry employing 53,000 people and is a nationally recognized cluster of innovation in digital media, agricultural technology, aviation, aerospace, and software design.

• More than 150 international companies, representing approximately 20 countries, have facilities in Metro Orlando including Lockheed- Martin, General Dynamics, Siemens, as well as the United States Government.

• Orlando is best known as being a tourism hot-spot around the globe. It is the home to the Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Orlando Resort, and Sea World Orlando. Universal Orlando is comprised of Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, and the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. According to Visit Orlando tourism statistics, an estimated 49.8 million visitors came to Orlando in 2010.

• Orlando is the home city of the Orlando Magic NBA team, the Orlando Predators Arena Football League team, the Orlando City S.C. USL Pro soccer team and the UCF Knights college athletics teams.

• Orlando is also home to the University of Central Florida, the second-largest university campus by student enrollment in the United States. Other notable colleges include Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida A & M University College of Law, and the Florida Institute of Technology.

• Famous Faces from Orlando include: actor/comedian, Wayne Brady; stand-up comedian Daniel Tosh; American author, poet, and painter, Jack Kerouac; professional baseball players, Johnny Damon and Zach Greinke; and American astronaut John Watts Young.

ORLANDO SPOT TEN

In Orlando last week the #1 radio player was ORLANDO KIA with 847 spots. 1-800-411-PAIN was #2 with 796 spots, while GEICO ran into #3 with 682 ads. MORGAN & MORGAN was #4 with 676 commercials and CENTURYLINK BUNDLE was #5 with 429 spots. The HD DIGTIAL RADIO ALLIANCE was #6, up from #11, with 408 mentions, while MCDONALD’S ran 368 spots to wrap up #7. LOWE’S was #8, up from #22, with 355 spots and PUBLIX jumped #24 to #9 with 346 ads. Coming in #10 was DEL-AIR (Plumbing and Heating) with 320 spots.

ACCOUNTING SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In the field of Accounting, there are more and more firms stepping up to be counted with national advertising. The #1 radio advertiser in this category was H&R BLOCK with 16,209 and that makes sense because this is the last week you can do your taxes. CERTIFIED TAX INC. was #2 with 987 ads, while AMERISTAR TAX CENTERS popped up to #3 with 936 commercials. JACKOSN HEWITT TAX SERVICE was #4 with 776 spots and TAXACT took #5 with 727 announcements. TAX MASTERS was #6 with 659 spots, while LOPEZ TAX SERVICE was #7, up from #20, with 326 ads. TAX NETWORK USA was #8 running 272 spots and JK HARRIS & COMPANY was #9 with 271 spots. RAPIDO EXPRESS TAX SERVICE was #10 airing 180 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

THE HOME DEPOT maintained their vice-like grip on #1 with 47,013 spots. GEICO was no slouch at #2 with 44,283 commercials. MCDONALD’S was a solid #3 with 25,604 spots, while WAL-MART bagged #4 with 23,718 ads. Coming in #5 was the HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE with 21,142 spots.

Posted: April 11, 2011

Brinker International, Inc. is best known for its ownership of Chili’s Grill & Bar, Maggiano’s Little Italy, and Romano’s Macaroni Grill. The company traces its roots to the first Chili’s Grill & Bar that opened in Dallas in March 1975 by restaurateur Larry Levine.

By the early 1980’s, 22 more Chili’s restaurants were opened and the restaurant chain was taken over by Norman E. Brinker, who began his career working for the Jack-In-The-Box fast food chain. Brinker’s resume also included the founding of Steak & Ale as well as introducing the salad bar concept, an innovation that soon swept the entire restaurant industry.

After leaving his post as an executive at Pillsbury, who had purchased his Steak & Ale franchise in 1976, Brinker went out on his own and purchased a significant share in the Chili’s chain in 1983.

In 1984, Brinker took Chili’s public and the 23 Chili’s restaurants were generating $40 million in sales. Throughout the mid-1980’s, Brinker and his associates expanded Chili’s steadily and introduced new menu options, like ribs and fajitas, that remain staples of the chain today.

By the late 1980s, Brinker was ready to branch out into new restaurants and in February 1989, acquired Grady’s Goodtimes, owned by the Regas family out of Knoxville, Tennessee. The chain went through a few name changes throughout the years, but was known at this point as Regas, later called Grady’s American Grill.

Nine months later, Chili’s acquired the rights to the Romano’s Macaroni Grill concept for $41 million. The restaurant’s atmosphere and menu were based off of the Italian family style of dining. Romano’s also introduced new innovations such as glass walls through which diners could see their meals being prepared by the chefs. By this time, Chili’s company had grown to include 215 restaurants and had introduced a new franchising program for its chains.

In May 1991, Chili’s changed it’s company name to Brinker International, Inc. Its main restaurant chains of Chili’s, Regas Grill, and Romano’s Macaroni Grill reported $438 million in revenue. Also at this time, Brinker set his sights on international expansion in Canada and Mexico.

By the mid 1990s, Brinker opened one new restaurant a week and saw great success with the Macaroni Grill chain. This success prompted him to open Spageddie’s, a low-priced, casual pasta restaurant in Plano, Texas. He also tested another restaurant called Kona Ranch Steakhouse in Oklahoma City. By late 1992, Brinker announced plans for further expansion after signing an agreement with Pac-Am Food Concepts, based in Hong Kong, to franchise 25 Chili’s restaurants in the Far East over the next 15 years.

In February 1994, Brinker acquired the On the Border restaurant chain. It was sold in 2010 to OTB Acquisitions LLC, an affiliate of Golden Gate Capital Partners.

In July 1995, the company announced a partnership with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, a restaurant developer in the Chicago area. This allowed Brinker to acquire three of Lettuce’s Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurants and five of its Corner Bakeries. By the end of the year, Brinker International sold Grady’s American Grill and Spageddie’s to Quality Dining, Inc.

In 2008, Brinker International sold a majority stake in the Romano’s Macaroni Grill to Golden Gate Capital Partners for $131 million, however still remain minority holders in the restaurant chain.

In 2010, Brinker International reported revenue of $2.2 billion with a net income more than $102.7 million. The company currently has 68,800 employees in more than 1550 locations in 31 countries worldwide.

In the last 12 months, Brinker has run 94,743 Cable TV ads. The biggest month was January with 10,493 spots.

On the Radio, Brinker is a minor player with only 14,141 spots in the last 12 months. October they ran 2,361 spots for their high.

Brinker International works TV better with 124,469 spots for the last 12 months with a major push in January with 18,119 ads.

POSTED: April 11, 2011

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is also a global pharmaceutical company and was started by German-American cousins, Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt in Brooklyn, New York in 1849. The company’s origin was as a fine chemical business, called Charles Pfizer and Company, where they produced the successful antiparasitic called santonin. It wasn’t until the 1880’s that the company truly took off with its development of citric acid, which became the launching pad for Pfizer’s later achievements.

Following World War I and the shortage of calcium citrate, used to make citric acid, Pfizer chemists came up with a way to manufacture the citric acid from the fermentation of sugar. As a result, Pfizer developed expertise in fermentation technology and used these skills towards the mass production of penicillin during World War II. In the late 1940s, Pfizer decided to search for new antibiotics with greater profit potential. The discovery and commercialization of Terramycin (oxytetracycline) by Pfizer in 1950 moved the company from a manufacturer of fine chemicals to a research-based pharmaceutical company. To augment its research in fermentation technology, Pfizer began a program to discover drugs through chemical synthesis. Pfizer also established an animal health division in 1959.

During the 1980s and 1990s Pfizer underwent a period of growth sustained by the discovery and marketing of Zoloft, Lipitor, Norvasc, Zithromax, Aricept, Diflucan, and Viagra. Pfizer has recently grown by mergers, including those with Warner–Lambert in 2000, with Pharmacia in 2003, and with Wyeth in 2009.

Today, Pfizer is behind some of the most well known prescription drugs on the market and they are the number one selling pharmaceutical company in the world. In 2010, Pfizer reported total revenue of $67.8 billion with $8.25 billion in net income. They currently have 110, 600 employees.

GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK; NYSE: GSK) is a global pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines, and consumer healthcare company. It is the third largest pharmaceutical company, in terms of revenue, and its products treat for a range of major disease areas including asthma, cancer, virus control, infections, mental health, diabetes, and digestive conditions. In addition, the company has a consumer health care division that produces the Sensodyne, Horlicks, and Gaviscon brands.

GlaxoSmithKline came together as a result of a number of mergers and acquisitions made throughout its history. In 1880, Burroughs Wellcome & Company was founded in London by Henry Wellcome and Silas Burroughs. In 1904, Glaxo was founded in New Zealand as a baby food manufacturer, later becoming Glaxo Laboratories. By 1978, Glaxo Laboratories became a major player in the U.S. market after its acquisition of Meyer Laboratories and by 1995 Glaxo and Burroughs Wellcome merged to form Glaxo Wellcome.

By 1989, Smith Kline merged with Beecham and formed SmithKline Beecham plc. At the turn of the century, in 2000, Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham merged and formed the current company GlaxoSmithKline.

Even before the formation of GlaxoSmithKline, each of the companies had their own milestones in the industry. In 1924, the vitamin D preparation, Ostelin, became Glaxo’s first pharmaceutical product. In 1948, Vitamin B12 is isolated by Glaxo scientists for the treatment of pernicious anemia and Streptomycin for TB treatment was produced. By the 1950s Smith Kline and French introduced Thorazine, an anti-psychotic drug that revolutionized the treatment of mental illness, followed by the first time-released medicine, Dexedrine. In 1972, scientists at Beecham Research Laboratories discovered amoxicillin and launched Amoxil, to become a widely-used antibiotic. In 1987, The AIDS treatment Retrovir (zidovudine) was launched by Wellcome.

Today, the company manufactures more than 70 products including the well known brands like Advair, Levitra, Paxil, Vesicare, Wellbutrin, and Zantac. Together they share around 5% of the world’s pharmaceutical market. In 2010, GlaxoSmithKline had total revenue of $46.5 billion with $2.76 billion in net income. They currently have 96, 500 employees in over 100 countries world-wide.

On Cable in the last 12 months, Pfizer is winning it with 880,657 spots compared to GlaxoSmithKline’s 558,251 spots. Last April was GSK’s biggest month with 66,626 spots, while Pfizer played the most spots in the month of January 98,108.

Radio was hot for Pfizer with 725,137 spots, but a colder media for GSK with 172,404 ads. Pfizer started the year with 98,221 spots in January, while GSK had their biggest month with September with 36,875 spots.

On Broadcast TV, Pfizer takes the lead with 663,836 spots in the last 12 months, while GlaxoSmithKline ran 444,371 spots in the same time period. June was Pfizer’s biggest month on TV with 66,789 spots and GSK ran hot in January with 47,241 ads.

Posted: April 11, 2011

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