Weekly Spots

POSTED: October 8, 2012

(White Plains, NY) October 8, 2012 – According to Arbitron, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton combined are the 71st radio market with a population of 697,600.

• Location, Location: Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding Wyoming Valley are framed by the Pocono Mountains to the east, the Endless Mountains to the west and the Lehigh Valley to the south.

• The Wyoming Valley was first inhabited by the Shawanese and Delaware Indian tribes in the early 18th century. By 1769, a group led by John Durkee became the first Europeans to reach the area. The settlement was named Wilkes-Barre after John Wilkes and Isaac Barré, two British members of Parliament who supported colonial America.

• Wilkes-Barre's population exploded due to the discovery of anthracite coal in the 19th century, which gave the city the nickname of "The Diamond City." While Wilkes-Barre mined the coal, Scranton produced T-rails for the tracks of the many railroads of America. And the nation's first successful, continuously operating electrified streetcar (trolley) system was established in 1886, giving Scranton the nickname "The Electric City".

• Wilkes-Barre is the birthplace of the Planters Peanuts Company, which was founded in 1906 by Italian immigrant Amedeo Obici and partner Mario Peruzzi. And Scranton was famous for pressing vinyl phonograph records for many companies, but most famously for Capitol Records, until the vinyl record era ended with the invention of the CD.

• In November 1972, 365 subscribers of Service Electric Cable were the first to receive HBO's service, making Wilkes-Barre the birthplace of modern cable TV programming. Scranton is the home of the fictional Dunder-Mifflin paper company, the setting for the NBC sitcom The Office.

• For professional sports: the market is home to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees of the IL baseball league who are affiliated with the New York Yankees; the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins from AHL are backed by the Pittsburgh Penguins; and the Arena Football team is the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers.

• Famous people from the area: Vice President Joe Biden is from Scranton; Hillary Clinton’s parents are from Scranton; along with novelist Lauren Weisberger – Devil Wears Prada. The rock band Breaking Benjamin hail from Wilkes-Barre; while the late Broadway and Law & Order actor Jerry Orbach lived in both Wilkes-Barre and Scranton growing up.

WILKES-BARRE-SCRANTON SPOT TEN

The #1 radio advertiser in Wilkes-Barre Scranton last week was SLEEPY’S airing 355 spots. BMW DEALER ASSOCIATION parked at #2 with 314 ads, while DICKSON CITY HYUNDAI was solid at #3 running 299 commercials. M&T BANK cashed in at #4 with 285 spots and GEICO soared from #42 to #5 with 203 spots. LOWE’S exploded from #98 up to #6 with 198 spots, while KING TUTS GOLD REPAIR HUT rolls from #11 to #7 with 191 ads. SWEET JACK jammed into #9 with 184 spots and THE HOME DEPOT stayed at #10 with 181 spots.

HOSPITAL & CLINIC SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

The leader in this category was ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL with 567 spots. INTERMOUNTAIN HEALTHCARE captured #2 again with 550 ads, while THE NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER was #3 with 522 commercials. CLEVELAND CLINIC climbed from #13 to #4 with 504 spots and CARESPOT was solid at #5 airing 450 spots. UNM HOSPITALS secured #6 with 405 ads and BANNER HEALTH was #7 running 375 spots. UC DAVIS HEALTH SYSTEM was #8 with 366 spots, while NEMOURS (Foundation) hit #9 with 359 spots. And coming in #10 was THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICINE with 347 announcements.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

The little lizard slithered back into #1 with 49,095 spots – GEICO appears to be everywhere. THE HOME DEPOT fell back to #2 running 34,715 commercials, while O’REILLY AUTO PARTS continued its quest - jumped from #5 to #3 airing 27,806 spots. WALGREENS is also on the move from #6 to #4 with 25,117 ads and MCDONALD’s slipped from #4 to #5 with 24,402 spots.

Of Note: BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT came in #19 with 10,695 spots, while MITT ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT ran only 1,776 spots for the week. The RNC also ran 1,000 spots for Romney’s campaign, but neither placed in the top 100 radio advertisers for the period; separately or in combination.

Posted: October 8, 2012

Papa John's Pizza (NASDAQ: PZZA) is the third largest take-out and delivery pizza restaurant chain in the United States, behind Pizza Hut and Domino's Pizza.

Based in Louisville, Kentucky, Papa John's employs the slogan "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza."

As a high school student working at a local pizza pub in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Papa John's founder John Schnatter realized that there was something missing from national pizza chains: a superior-quality traditional pizza delivered to the customer's door. His dream was to one day open a pizza restaurant that would fill that void.

In 1983, "Papa" John Schnatter knocked out a broom closet located in the back of his father's tavern (Mick's Lounge), sold his prized 1971 Z28 Camaro and purchased $1,600 worth of used restaurant equipment, and began selling his pizzas to the tavern's customers.

The customers loved the pizza so much that John was able to expand by moving into adjoining space, eventually leading to the opening of the first Papa John's restaurant in 1984.

In 1997, Pizza Hut filed suit against Papa John's for advertisements that compared the ingredients of Papa John's and its competitors. At trial, the court agreed with Pizza Hut's argument that Papa John's slogan did not constitute statements of literal fact – that "fresher ingredients" do not necessarily account for a "better" pizza. This ruling was overturned in 2000 when Papa John's appealed the decision. Although the jury's decision on the misleading advertising was upheld, the appeals court determined that Pizza Hut failed to prove, under the requirements of the Lanham Act, that the misleading advertising and puffery had a material effect on consumers' purchasing decisions.

In 2009, Schnatter began a nation-wide campaign to find the Z28 Camaro he sold in order to start his first Papa John's store. With the help of the automotive website Jalopnik, the car was traced to the town of Flatwoods, Kentucky, where it was owned by one Jeff Robertson. He sold the car back to Schnatter in August of that year, cashing a check for $250,000; in addition, Schnatter offered $25,000 to the family who had originally purchased the car from him in 1983. In honor of the re-acquisition of the car, Papa John's announced that anyone who drove a Camaro to a Papa John's location on August 26 would receive one free pizza.

In 2011 they opened their 3,000th restaurant in America.

In August of 2012, John Schnatter created some controversy when he criticized President Obama’s health-care law and said he believed it would raise cost of each of his pizzas by 15 to 20 cents.

According to their annual report, Papa John’s created revenues of $1.22 billion with a net income of $55.66 million, which represented an 8.1% growth in sales in 2011. They have 16,500 employees.

On Local Cable Papa John’s ran 170,202 spots in the last 12 months. Their biggest month in that range was January 2012 when they ran 21,780 spots.

On Radio, Papa John’s ran the least of the three media with 44,256 spots in the last 12 months. The hottest month was June 2012 when they cleared 4,811 spots.

On Broadcast TV, Papa John’s ran the most, overall, on TV at 48.14% of all spots ran in the three media. They ran 199,107 ads in the last 12 months on the tube with their biggest month coming in January 2012 with 22,105 spots.

POSTED: October 8, 2012

Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Nextel Corporation and provides nationwide, prepaid, wireless voice, messaging (should it be wireless, voice messaging?) and broadband data products and services to customers in the continental United States under the Virgin Mobile, payLo, and Assurance Wireless brands.

Founded in 2001 as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint Corporation, Virgin Mobile USA commenced operations in June, 2002 as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) providing services via the nationwide Sprint 1900 MHz PCS CDMA digital network and the nationwide Clearwire 2500 MHz WiMax digital network.

In 2008, Virgin Mobile USA acquired Helio, Inc. In 2009, Sprint Nextel Corporation bought out joint venture partner Virgin Group, becoming the sole owner of Virgin Mobile USA.

Virgin Mobile branded handsets and broadband access devices are available online and at more than 40,000 retail partner locations including Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and Wal-Mart stores. Virgin Mobile branded top-up cards are available online and in 150,000 retail locations nationwide.

Virgin Mobile USA licenses the right to use the Virgin Mobile brand in the United States from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group, which is an international investment group that has been in many different businesses over the years. Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays and health & wellness.

According to Sprint’s annual report, they had revenues of $5.4 billion with a net income of $33.6 million. Sprint has 40,000 employees.

Cricket Communications, Inc., also referred to as Cricket Wireless, was founded in 1999 and provides wireless services to over 5.9 million customers.

The company is a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, utilizing its CDMA 1X and 1xEV-DO networks. Under the Cricket brands, they offer Cricket Wireless - a flat rate with unlimited wireless service; Cricket Broadband - an unlimited nationwide high-speed wireless Internet flat rate service; Cricket PAYGo - an unlimited pay-as-you-go monthly wireless service; and MuveMusic - an unlimited music service designed for the mobile phone that does not require a computer.

According to their latest annual report, Leap Wireless had revenues of $3.07 billion with a net loss of $314.63 million. They did see a 13.9% growth in sales in 2011. They have 3,891 employees.

On Local Cable, the two companies are running neck and neck. Cricket Wireless ran 28,954 spots in the last 12 months, while Virgin Mobile ran 25,094 ads. The biggest month on Cable for Virgin was last March 2012 with 9,537 spots and Cricket ran hottest last month September 2012 with 5,544 ads.

On the Radio, Cricket is out front with 282,620 spots in the last 12 months, while Virgin Mobile aired 136,339 ads in the same period. Virgin’s biggest month was December 2011 when they ran 21,499 spots as well as Cricket when they cleared 41,128 spots in the last month of last year.

Virgin Mobile ran 193,908 spots in the last 12 months, with Cricket jumping right behind with 149,710 spots. Cricket ran the most last month September with 25,080 ads and Virgin Mobile ran hottest last month as well with 22,519 ads.

Posted: October 8, 2012

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