Weekly Spots

POSTED: May 2, 2011

(White Plains, NY) May 2, 2011 – According to Arbitron, Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, North Carolina is the 24th largest radio market with a population of 2,040,000.

• Charlotte was settled by people of European descent around 1755 when Thomas Spratt and his family settled near what is now the Elizabeth neighborhood. Within decades, the area grew to become "Charlotte Town," incorporating in 1768.
• Charlotte is nicknamed the Queen City in honor of the German Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg, who had become queen consort of British King George III the year before the city's founding.
• A second nickname comes from the American Revolutionary War, when British commander General Cornwallis occupied the city but was driven out by hostile residents, prompting him to write that Charlotte was "a hornet's nest of rebellion," leading to the nickname The Hornet's Nest and what motivated the NBA basketball team, that later moved to New Orleans.
• Charlotte has become a major U.S. financial center and is now the second largest banking center in the United States after New York City.
• In the region, there are over 240 companies directly tied to the energy sector including AREVA, Babcock and Wilcox, Duke Energy, Electric Power Research Institute, Fluor, Mets Power, Piedmont Natural Gas, Siemens Energy, Shaw Group, Toshiba, URS Corp., and Westinghouse.
• Among the most notable universities and colleges in Charlotte are the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Johnson & Wales University, Queens University of Charlotte, Johnson C. Smith University, and the Charlotte School of Law.
• Charlotte is the home of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, the Charlotte Bobcats of the National Basketball Association, as well as a major center in the U.S. motorsport industry. It is the home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame as well as the site of many NASCAR offices.
• Famous faces from Charlotte, North Carolina include Air Force General and NASA astronaut, Susan Helms; CBS sportscaster, Jim Nantz; anthropologist/author, Kathy Reichs; actress, Sharon Lawrence; and rapper, DJ Flash.

CHARLOTTE SPOT TEN

The #1 radio advertiser in Charlotte last week was THE HOME DEPOT with 979 spots. Coming in #2 was GEICO with 633 spots, while WAL-MART was #3, up from #13, with 527 spots. FOLGER KIA was #4 airing 428 announcements and VERIZON was #5 with 395 ads. SCOTT CLARK’S TOYOTA SCION was #6 with 387 commercials, while LOWE’S ran 357 spots to claim the #7 position. FIFTH THRID BANK was #8 with 351 spots and SAFELITE AUTOGLASS was #9 with 348 spots. GOOD KIA landed in #10 with 330 spots.

CAR & TRUCK LOCAL DEALERS SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In this category, CARMAX leads the pack of local dealers with 9,744 spots. Coming in a distant second was THE KIA STORE with 1,562 spots. WEST PALM BEACH KIA was #3 with 983 spots, while TAYLOR KIA (Georgia) was #4 with 967 spots. ORLANDO KIA was #5 with 900 commercials and TAYLOR HYUNDAI was #6 with 889 spots. ADVANTAGE SUZUKI (New York) was #7 with 840 spots, while AUCTION DIRECT USA was #8 airing 826 announcements. NORTHEN CALIFORNIA CHEVROLET DEALERS were in at #9 running 815 spots and DAVE SMITH MOTORS (Idaho) was #10 with 813 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

We have another ceiling broken with THE HOME DEPOT running 79,967 spots in one week. Coming in #2 was GEICO with 36,942 spots, while SAFELITE AUTOGLASS hitting #3 with 36,916 ads. MCDONALD’S was #4 with 24,915 spots and #5 was VERIZON with 24,765 spots.

Posted: May 2, 2011

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent agency of the U.S. Government whose roots date back to the 17th century when there was a need for correspondence between the colonies in America and England.

Benjamin Franklin established the first version of the postal service in Philadelphia in 1775 and became joint postmaster general of the colonies. The Post Office Department was created from Franklin’s operation in 1792 and it was integrated as a part of the United States Cabinet.

The first postage stamps were issued for sale in New York City on July 1, 1847, with Boston receiving stamps the following day. Prepaid stamp usage became mandatory in the country by 1855.

In 1863, “city delivery” began in urban areas where there were enough customers. This required streets to be named, houses to be numbered, sidewalks with adequate lighting, and street addresses to be added to envelopes. By the 1910’s, mailboxes were phased in as a requirement for service, a policy that continues today.

In August of 1864, the first official Post Office route was put into operation between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa, with other routes quickly following. The advent of rural free delivery came about in 1896, parcel post service in 1913, and airmail in 1918.

Until 1912, mail was delivered seven days a week. As the postal service grew in popularity, local post offices doubled as gathering places leading to a decline in church attendance. After complaints from religious leaders, the government closed the post offices on Sundays, thus setting the stage for a 6 day mailing system used today, although there has been talk of eliminating Saturday mail to lower overhead.

On August 12, 1970, President Nixon signed Public Law 91-375, or The Postal Reorganization Act, that reorganized the federal Post Office Department into the United States Postal Service. Effective on July 1st of the next year, the USPS became an independent agency of the executive branch, no longer under Congress’ control.

The United States Postal Service has been granted Congressional monopoly over the delivery of mail. No other mail delivery service, public or private, can be established without Congress’ consent. They are the second largest civilian employer in the country (excluding the Federal Government) behind only Wal-Mart. The USPS operates the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world.

In 2010, the USPS had $67.05 billion in revenue and $8.51 billion in net income. They have 583,908 employees, operate 36,400 post offices and locations in the U.S. and deliver 177 billion pieces of mail each year.

Most of the spots for the United States Postal Service ran on Cable, about 77% of their spots in fact. Total spots ran in the last 12 months was 209,313 spots with the biggest exposure occurring in November (24,753).

On the Radio, the biggest month was October with 1,661 spots. The total spots ran in the last 12 months were only 6,112 on radio.

On TV, USPS ran a total of 56,256 ads in the last 12 months with December being the biggest schedule (8,296 spots).

POSTED: May 2, 2011

Jenny Craig, Inc. is a weight loss, weight management, and nutritional advice company founded by Jenny Craig and Sidney Craig. Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, the company markets a meal plan, based on the purchase of its own prepared foods, and provides advisory and motivational services to its customers.

Co-founder Jenny Craig operated a gym in her hometown of New Orleans, before joining the staff at the Body Contour fitness center in 1970. Body Contour was headed by Sid Craig, who Jenny married in 1979, and together they helped turn the struggling company into a thriving business that was reporting $35 million in sales by 1982.

That year, the Craig’s sold Body Contour to a subsidiary of Nutrisystem, Inc. With the $3.5 million they made from the sale, the Craig’s formed Jenny Craig, Inc. in 1983. Initially barred from entering the U.S. diet industry by a noncompetition clause, the company opened its first weight loss center in Australia. By 1985, the Craig’s returned to the United States, opening 13 centers in the Los Angeles area, which were soon followed by six additional facilities in Chicago.

Marketing was integral to Jenny Craig's success. In the early 1990s, ten percent of sales went into commercial advertising each year, and franchises were required to spend the higher of ten percent of sales or $1,000 a week on advertising for their centers. The company's television campaigns featured celebrities, such as Elliot Gould and Susan Ruttan, who had achieved success with the Jenny Craig program.

In 2005, actress Kirstie Alley became the spokeswoman, later joined by Valerie Bertinelli. While Bertinelli remains a spokesperson, more recent clients have included Queen Latifah, actresses Sara Rue and Nicole Sullivan, as well as actor Jason Alexander.

In May 2002, Jenny Craig, Inc. was acquired by MidOcean Partners, a New York and London-based private equity investment firm, and ACI Capital, a New York-based private investment firm. On June 19, 2006, they announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell the company to Nestlé in a transaction valued at approximately $600 million. The company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nestlé.

Today, Jenny Craig has more than 725 company-owned and franchised centers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Guam. They have had more than 5 million clients since 1993 and estimate that more than 150,000 clients use the Jenny Craig system in a given week. There are approximately 4,000 employees nationwide.

Weight Watchers International, Inc. (NYSE: WTW) is a global-branded consumer company and the world's leading provider of weight management services. In the more than 45 years since its founding, the company has built its meetings business by helping millions of people around the world lose weight through sensible and sustainable food plans, exercise, behavior modification and group support.

Weight Watchers was founded in 1963 by a Brooklyn homemaker, Jean Nidetch. Nidetch struggled with her weight for years and tried almost every dieting fad with no results. She decided to form a support group of her friends where they would get together and confess their various obsessions and downfalls with food; this support group turned into a weekly gathering of friends encouraging each other and sharing ideas and advice. Realizing that this weekly support was a key factor in providing motivation and encouragement for successful and long-term weight loss, Jean began to hold meetings at other people’s homes as well. This proved to be so successful that in 1963 Weight Watchers was incorporated, and hosted its first proper meeting in Queens, New York. Hundreds of people turned out for this first meeting, and as people realized that the concept did actually work, they began to learn more about the theory behind Weight Watchers and then hold their own classes across the globe.

Weight Watchers' core approach is to assist members in losing weight by forming helpful habits, eating smarter, getting more exercise and providing support. In contrast to other diets that might provide a list of foods that must be, or should never be, eaten, Weight Watchers has no directly comparable requirements on its primary plan. Participants lose weight by creating a calorie deficit on their PointsPlus system, which provides a framework for creating that deficit.

From 1978 until 1999, Weight Watchers was owned by the H. J. Heinz Company, which continues to produce packaged foods bearing the Weight Watchers brand. Weight Watchers was acquired in a leveraged buyout in 1999 by Artal Luxembourg and went public in 2001. Artal continues to own over 50% of the shares of Weight Watchers as of 2010.

In 2010, consumers spent over $4 billion on Weight Watchers branded products and services. Each week, approximately 1.2 million members attend over 45,000 Weight Watchers meetings around the world, which are run by more than 12,000 leaders. As of January 1, 2011, Weight Watchers had $1.45 billion in total revenue and $194 million in net income. As of 2010, they had 28,000 employees.

On Cable, Weight Watchers is way ahead of Jenny Craig. Jenny ran 96,567 spots, while Weight Watchers placed 128,001 spots in the last 12 months. Jenny’s biggest month was last March with 12,506 and Weight Watchers biggest month was January with 37,166 spots.

On the Radio, both organizations were a bit slim on their radio time bought. Jenny Craig only ran 2,293 spots in the last 12 months, while Weight Watchers ran 17,485 spots.

In TV land, Weight Watchers cleared 40,853 spots in the last 12 months, while Jenny Craig did 26,203 spots. Jenny’s biggest moth was April with 4,183 spots and Weight Watchers spread on thick in the same month with 11,956 spots.

Posted: May 2, 2011

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