Weekly Spots

POSTED: October 3, 2011

(White Plains, NY) October 3, 2011 – According to Arbitron, Pittsburgh, PA is the 25th largest radio market with a population of 1,991,400.

• Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by Gen. John Forbes in honor of a British statesman Sir William Pitt. It was incorporated as a borough in 1794.

• Steel production began by 1875, when Andrew Carnegie founded the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, which eventually evolved into the Carnegie Steel Company.

• Pittsburgh is a headquarter kind of town: Alcoa, Inc., Allegheny Technologies, American Eagle Outfitters, Dicks Sporting Goods, GNC Corporation, H. J. Heinz, Mellon Financial, PNC Financial, PPG Industries and WESCO are just some of the top companies that call the ‘burgh home.

• Museums include the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Frick Art & Historical Museum.

• They have many universities: University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon, Duquesne University, Point Park University, and Robert Morris University.

• Famous people who grew up around the city: Andy Warhol, Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Feldon, Gene Kelly, Kurt Angle, Michael Keaton, Ahmad Jamal, and Dennis Miller.

• Pittsburgh is home to the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, which went on the air in 1920. Pittsburgh also claims the first non-commercial television station WQED, which produced the highly successful children’s TV show: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

• The Pittsburgh area has also produced more professional quarterbacks than any other region: Johnny Unitas, Dan Marino, Marc Bulger, George Blanda, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana and of course, Joe Namath.

• Pittsburgh has been called the "City of Champions" for its success in sports: The Pittsburgh Steelers have played in 8 Super Bowls and have 6 championships.

• MLB’s Pirates have won five World Series and NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup twice. Pittsburgh has no NBA team.

PITTSBURGH SPOT TEN

In the Steel City the #1 advertiser was HIGHMARK BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD with 831 spots. Coming in #2 was GIANT EAGLE with 776 ads, while GEICO landed in #3 with 711 spots. THE HOME DEPOT was #4 airing 409 announcements and UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) was #5, up from #50 with 389 spots. VERIZON was #6 with 363 spots and CBS TV NETWORKD was #7 running 359 commercials. DOLLAR BANK was #8 with 320 spots, while FOX TV NETWORK was #9 with 303 spots. Coming in #10 was STATE FARM with 286 spots.

BOOKSTORES & MUSIC RETAILERS SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In this one, the king is NETFLIX with 13,860 spots. BLOCKBUSTER was #2 with 1,034 spots, while HALF PRICE BOOKS landed in #3 with 766 spots. F.Y.E. took #4 with 80 spots and DISC REPLAY was #5 with 71 spots. MUSIC MILLENNIUM was #6 running 67 spots, while DC COMICS splat-banged into #7 with 64 spots. 2ND & CHARLES was #8 with 57 commercials and BARNES & NOBLE took #9 with 55 spots nationwide. TREE OF KNOWLEDGE BOOKSTORE grew from #18 to #10 with 48 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

GEICO is back to #1 with 49,141 spots pushing THE HOME DEPOT back to #2 with 33,322 spots, while STATE FARM continues it fall campaign with 32,174 spots and holds onto #3. MCDONALD’S keeps #4 warm with 24,365 spots and AUTOZONE zooms from #14 to #5 with 22,809 spots.

Posted: October 3, 2011

Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) was founded by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher on March 16, 1967 and started to fly on June 18, 1971, with three Boeing 737 aircraft serving three Texas cities - Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Southwest Airlines was the first to offer the frequent miles program, which other airlines copied.

Today, Southwest operates 550 Boeing 737 aircraft among 72 cities. Southwest topped the monthly domestic originating passenger rankings for the first time in May 2003.

Year-end results for 2010 marked Southwest's 38th consecutive year of profitability. Southwest became a major airline in 1989 when it exceeded the billion-dollar revenue mark.

Southwest is the United States' most successful low fare, high frequency, point-to-point carrier. Southwest operates more than 3,400 flights a day coast-to-coast, making it the largest U.S. carrier based on domestic passengers carried as of December 31, 2010.

On May 2, 2011, Southwest acquired Orlando-based AirTran Airways and expects to complete the integration of the two airlines over the next several years.

Their marketing features the phrases: “Bags Fly Free” and “You are free to move about the country”.

Last year they reported revenues of $12.10 billion with a net income of $459 million. Their sales grew by 16.9% in 2010 and they have 34,901 employees.

On Cable, Southwest ran 49,554 spots in the last 12 months. Their biggest month was May with 14,158 spots.

On Radio, Southwest was rather prudent with only 23,575 spots in the last 12 months. The biggest month was last November when they ran 6,354 spots.

On TV, Southwest Airlines ran 61,259 spots in the last 12 months with a strong run until September. The high was last October with 6,442 and then another bump in March at 6,189 ads.

POSTED: October 3, 2011

In this Competitive Face-Off, it is amazing how well these two giants in the casual dining category. Both have a steakhouse, a pop-Italian offering, a seafood entry and a beach themed outlet. And this is how they face-off.

OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC is a hospitality company that owns several casual dining restaurant chains.

The company was established in 1988 in Tampa, Florida where they introduced the first Outback Steakhouse, an Australian themed restaurant. That restaurant was owned by the partners Bob Basham, Trudy Cooper, Chris Sullivan and Tim Gannon.

In 1991 they went public on NASDAQ, later moving to the NYSE.

Carrabba's Italian Grill was founded in Houston by Johnny Carrabba and Damian Mandola in December of 1986.

Carrabba's caught the attention of Aussie-themed Outback Steakhouse, Inc. owners. A joint venture partnership was formed and in January, 1995, Outback Steakhouse, Inc. acquired the rights to develop Carrabba's nationwide. There are currently over 200 Carrabba's Italian Grill locations.

In January of 2000 in St. Petersburg, Florida, Bonefish Grill was launched by Tim Curci and Chris Parker. A year later a partnership with OSI was created and their current President John Cooper is the husband of Outback Steakhouse founder Trudy Cooper.

Cheeseburger in Paradise is a casual dining restaurant. The first restaurant opened on August 22, 2002, in Indianapolis, Indiana and by 2010 the restaurant had 34 locations in 17 states. Named for the song "Cheeseburger in Paradise" by Jimmy Buffett, the chain was a partnership between Buffett's company, Margaritaville Holdings LLC, and OSI Restaurant Partners, with Buffett licensing the name.

OSI also owns Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine.

In 2007, OSI Restaurant Partners was bought out by Bain Capital Partners, Catterton Partners and founders Sullivan, Basham, and Gannon for a reported price of $3.2 billion.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: DRI) owns multi-brand restaurants and his headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The firm owns several casual dining restaurant chains, most notably Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Red Lobster. Darden owns and operates 1,800 restaurant locations throughout North America.

William (Bill) Darden started his first restaurant in Waycross, Georgia at the age of 19. It was called The Green Frog and offered “service with a hop.”

Next, in 1968 Darden opened the Red Lobster Inns of America, with its first Red Lobster restaurant in Lakeland, Florida. Darden chose Lakeland because he wished to see how the concept would fare in a non-coastal region, and Lakeland was the innermost city in Florida.

The restaurant became hugely successful and by 1970 had expanded to three locations in the state. While the locations were profitable, the company lacked the resources to expand further, so Darden sold the company to food giant General Mills.

Under General Mills, Red Lobster grew into a successful chain of almost 400 locations by 1985. The company underwent several restructurings and transformed itself from an inexpensive fast-food seller into a chain of casual dining seafood restaurants by 1988.

In 1982, Darden opened the first Olive Garden concept store in Orlando. The chain took off, and by 1989 General Mills had opened over 145 stores, making the chain the fastest-growing unit in the company's restaurant holdings.

While Olive Garden did not meet critical success, it was popular, and its per-store sales soon grew to match those of Red Lobster. The company helped bolster its Italian bona fides opening the Culinary Institute of Tuscany in Tuscany, Italy, a training facility designed to allow its chefs to become fluent in Italian cuisine in an authentic Italian setting.

China Coast was an attempt to create a casual dining restaurant that featured American Chinese cuisine, but by the end of 1995, China Coast folded and the remaining good locations were either converted to Red Lobsters or Olive Gardens.

Bahama Breeze, featuring food and drinks found in the islands of the Caribbean Sea and a Caribbean theme, was created in 1996.

Darden Restaurants was spun off from General Mills in 1995 and went public on May 31, 1995 on the NYSE. In 2007, they bought the LongHorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille.

LongHorn Steakhouse operates more than 350 restaurants in 33 states. Today, there are more than 680 Red Lobster locations in the United States and Canada. There are more than 750 Olive Gardens. They operate more than 1,780 restaurants.

Darden Restaurants’ latest figures showed revenues of $7.5 billion with a net income of $476 million. They have 10,000 employees.

On Cable, OSI ran 244,950 spots, or 63.2% of that of Darden’s 387,461 spots in the last 12 months. Darden’s biggest month was January with 45,467 spots and OSI’s hottest month was May 2011 with 29,102 ads.

Radio means little to Darden with only 647 spots in the last 12 months compared to OSI Restaurant Partners that ran 142,534 spots. OSI’s biggest month on radio was May 2011 with 21,814 spots against Darden’s biggest August with 396 ads.

On TV the battle was quite even, with OSI clearing 50,927 spots against Darden’s 88,050 spots in the last 12 months. The biggest month for OSI was August 2011 with 7,269 spots, while Darden’s biggest month on TV was January with 10,142 spots.

Posted: October 3, 2011

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