Weekly Spots

POSTED: April 2, 2012

(White Plains, NY) April 2, 2012 – According to Arbitron, Tucson, AZ is the 62nd largest radio market with a population of 845,900.

• Tucson is the county seat of Pima County, Arizona. The name, Tucson, relates to the Spanish city, Tucsón, meaning "base of the black [hill]", a reference to an adjacent volcanic mountain in Spain.

• In 1775, Hugo O'Conor established the Tucson Presido, thus its birth date. Tucson was part of Mexico, until the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, when it was moved into the United States.

• University of Arizona established in 1885 is located in Tucson the second largest university in the state in terms of enrollment with over 36,000 students. The University of Arizona Wildcats sports teams are often the subject of national attention as well as strong local interest. The men's basketball team has made 25 straight NCAA Tournaments and won the 1997 National Championship.

• Tucson was given a gold rating for bicycle friendliness by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) in late April, 2007. Tucson hosts the largest perimeter cycling event in the United States. The ride called "El Tour de Tucson" happens in November on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

• Some famous faces born in Tucson include, Dave Baldwin, major league baseball player; Ron Hassey, major league baseball player; Linda Ronstadt, singer; Barbara Eden, Actress and Dan Hicks, NBC Sportscaster.

TUCSON SPOT TEN

In the Tucson radio market last week the #1 radio advertiser was the US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES with 665 spots. GEICO was #2 airing 505 announcements, while PREMIER AUTO CENTER came in #3 running 467 spots. STATE FARM was #4 airing 354 advertisements and THE HOME DEPOT took #5 with 348 spots. REGIONALHELPWANTED.COM landed in #6 with 346 spots, while SLEEP AMERICA jumped from #18 to #7 with 325 spots. FRY’S (Kroger Co.) soared from #24 to #8 with 299 commercials and SAM’S FURNITURE OUTLET came in #9 with 280 spots. And the TUCSON MEDICAL CENTER was 10 airing 274 spots.

LIVE THEATER, OPERA, MUSIC & DANCE SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In this category, the #1 Live Theater (Opera, Music, Dance) production advertising on the radio in the USA last week was DISNEY ON ICE with 1,969 spots. Coming in #2 was AEROSMITH – The Global Warming Tour with 1,657 spots. DRAKE CLUB PARADISE TOUR was #3 airing 1,346 ads, while NEW EDITION – The Reunion Tour was #4 with 1,198 spots. MADEA GETS A JOB was #5 with 1,074 spots and WICKED – A New Musical came in #6 with 668 spots. JERSEY BOYS sang into #7 with 632 spots and MANA DRAMA Y LUZ TOUR took #8 with 561 spots. DISNEY ON BROADWAY was #9 airing 487 announcements and the famous BLUE MAN GROUP landed in #10 with 430 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

THE HOME DEPOT holds its #1 status with 44,618 spots nationwide. GEICO is a strong #2 airing 36,608 spots. AUTOZONE zooms from #14 to #3 with 28,938 ads, while MCDONALD’S stays at #4 with 26,674 commercials. Coming in #5 was ADVANCE AUTO PARTS with 21,610 spots.

Posted: April 2, 2012

Netflix, Inc. is a service that is dedicated to flat rate online DVD and Blu-Ray video rental as well as on-demand video streaming. The company was started in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California. Hastings’ inspiration for starting the company came after renting the movie Apollo 13 and incurring $40 in late fees, well over the actual cost of the video itself!

The Netflix website launched in April of 1998 on a pay-per-rental basis and by the following year it had adopted its monthly subscription model with no late fees, no due dates, no shipping fees, and no per-title rental fees.

In 2000, Netflix came up with an algorithm, known as CineMatch, which compares rental patterns among its customers and looks for similarities in taste in order to recommend titles to people whose profiles are similar. It can also be programmed to combine the attributes of two users, such as a married couple, and recommend titles that they both might like. The information collected from the CineMatch system is also shared with movie studios to help them plan marketing campaigns.

On May 22, 2002 Netflix went public selling 5,500,000 shares at $15 per share. Two years later the company posted its first profitable year since its inception. In 2002, they had 670,000 subscribers.

As of 2009, Netflix had 100,000 different DVD titles to choose from and had surpassed the 10 million members mark. In addition to watching movies on ones television or computer, Netflix is compatible with the Mac brand of devices (iPod, iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV), gaming consoles (Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii), and TiVo among others.

In the latest reports, Netflix shows revenues of $3.20 billion with a net income of $226.13 million. That was a 48.2% increase in sales in 2011 and they have 2,348 employees. On their web site they claim to have more than 23 million streaming members in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

On Local Cable, Netflix ran 82,199 spots in the last 12 months. Their biggest month was March 2012 with 14,526 ads.

Netflix loves Radio with 648,913 ads in the last 12 months. In December alone they cleared 98,111 spots.

On Broadcast TV, Netflix ran 158,022 spots in the last year with December (24,039) and last month, March (14,526) being their biggest months.

POSTED: April 2, 2012

KROGER was started in 1883 by Barney Kroger. He invested his life savings of $372 to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, Kroger ran his business with a simple motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.”

With almost 130 years of experience, Kroger has evolved into a variety of formats aimed at satisfying the ever-changing needs of the consumer. With nearly 2,500 stores throughout 31 states, Kroger ranks as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

Some of their other brands include: Loaf ‘N Jug, Dillon’s, Baker’s, Ralph’s, City Market, King Soopers, Smith’s Food & Drug Stores, Fry’s Marketplace, Fry’s Mercado, Smith’s Marketplace, V&F Coffee and Office Products, Food 4 Less, Fresh Fare, QFC – Quality Food Centers, Cala Foods, Bell Markets, Fred Meyer.

In the early 1900s, most grocers bought their bread from independent bakeries. But Kroger always baked its own bread attempting to reduce the price for their customers while still making money. Mr. Kroger became the first grocer in the country to establish his own bakeries. He was also the first to sell meats and groceries under one roof.

Kroger now operates 41 food processing facilities that collectively make thousands of products ranging from bread, cookies, milk, soda pop, ice cream and peanut butter. Nearly half of the 14,400 private-label items found in the company’s stores today are made at one of these manufacturing plants. These “corporate brands” today account for an impressive 26% of the grocery dollar sales at Kroger, providing the company with a huge strategic advantage.

Acquisitions have played a key role in Kroger’s growth over the years. In 1983, 100 years after the company’s founding, Kroger merged with Dillon Companies Inc. in Kansas to become a coast-to-coast operator of food, drug and convenience stores.

The biggest merger in Kroger’s history came in 1999, when the company teamed up with Fred Meyer, Inc. in a $13 billion deal that created a supermarket chain with the broadest geographic coverage and widest variety of formats in the food retailing industry. The merger also enabled Kroger to generate huge economies of scale in purchasing, manufacturing, information systems and logistics. In an era when many larger mergers failed, the success of the Kroger-Fred Meyer merger stands out.

According to public records, Kroger produced revenues of $90.37 billion with a net income of $602.10 million. They claim 2012 Sales Growth of 10.0% and as of January 2010 they reported 334,000 employees (including part-time and full-time).

SAFEWAY started in 1915. M.B. Skaggs, an ambitious young man based in the small town of American Falls, Idaho purchased a tiny grocery store from his father. M.B.'s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, proved spectacularly successful.

By 1926 he was operating 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M.B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway outlets (formerly known as Selig stores). Two years later M.B. listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. M.B. did not let the difficulties of the Great Depression dilute his pioneering focus on value for customers. In the 1930's Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, open dating on perishables to assure freshness, nutritional labeling, even some of the first parking lots.

Today, there are 1,775 Safeway stores across the US and Canada. These include 312 Vons stores in Southern California and Nevada, 112 Randall’s - Tom Thumb stores in Texas, 37 Genuardi's store in the Philadelphia area, as well as 17 Carr’s stores in Alaska. They also have own Dommick’s and Pavilions.

Like Kroger, Safeway's success has linked to the introduction of one of the most extensive private labels programs in North America with some 3,000 products including Safeway, Lucerne and Mrs. Wright's. An additional 1,250 premium products are marketed under the Safeway SELECT label.

According to 2011 reports, Safeway Revenue produced revenues of $43.63 billion with a net income of $512.90 million, which according to their annual report represented a 6.3% increase in sales. They have 178,000 employees.

On Local Cable, Safeway only aired about 8.35% as many spots as Kroger. Kroger ran 41,166 spots in the last 12 months compared to Safeway with 3,437 spots. Kroger’s biggest month was December 2011 with 6,071 spots, while Safeway ran the most spots in September with 893 ads.

Both grocery chains love Radio. Kroger ran 756,040 spots in the last 12 months and Safeway ran 286,410 spots in the same period. Kroger’s biggest month was December with 86,415 spots, while Safeway ran hottest in February 2012 with 36,237 ads.

On TV, Kroger ran 133,682 spots in the last 12 months, while Safeway ran 45,749 ads. Kroger’s biggest Broadcast TV month was December with 19,201 spots and Safeway ran the most in December as well with 11,853 spots.

Posted: April 2, 2012

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