What a radio schedule actually costs in a market this size

The honest answer is that nobody can quote you a radio schedule over the phone, and you should be suspicious of anyone who tries. What a schedule costs depends on how many people you need to reach, how often you need to reach them before they remember you, and what time of day those people are actually listening. Change any one of those and the number moves.

What we can do is show you the arithmetic, so the next proposal you read, ours or anyone else’s, stops being a wall of numbers and starts being a decision you can make.

Reach is cheap. Frequency is what you are buying.

Almost every business that tells us radio did not work for them bought reach and skipped frequency. They ran a heavy week, hit a large share of the market once or twice, and heard nothing back. That is not a failed campaign. That is an unfinished one.

The rule of thumb that has held up in markets this size for decades: someone needs to hear your name roughly three times inside a week before it lodges. Below that, you are paying to be forgotten. Which means a smaller schedule running twelve months will beat a larger schedule running six weeks, every single time, at the same total spend.

Six weeks at double budget loses to twelve months at a steady one. If your budget only supports one of those, run the long one.

This is also why we would rather talk you out of a campaign than sell you a short one. A four-week flight at a budget that cannot sustain frequency spends real money to prove nothing.

The three numbers to ask for

Whoever you buy from, these three numbers turn a proposal into something you can compare. Any rep who cannot produce them quickly is quoting you inventory, not a plan.

• Net reach: how many different people in the market will hear you at all during the schedule. Not impressions. People.
• Average frequency: how many times each of those people hears you in a typical week. Under three, ask what it would take to get there.
• Cost per point, or cost per thousand: what you are paying for that reach, so you can hold two proposals side by side without doing algebra.

You will notice none of those is “impressions.” Impressions are an input. They are also the easiest number to inflate, which is exactly why they lead so many proposals.

What moves the price

Dayparts move it most. Morning drive costs more than midday because more people are listening and because they are listening more attentively, in the car, alone, with nothing else running. Midday is cheaper and reaches a different, often more loyal, audience. Neither is correct in the abstract; it depends on when your customer is deciding.

Seasonality moves it too. Retail categories bid up the fourth quarter, home services bid up spring. If your busy season is everyone’s busy season, you either pay for it or you get in front of it in the quieter months, when your money buys more frequency and your competitors have gone quiet.

Creative moves it in a way most rate cards never mention. A spot that says one thing clearly will outperform a spot that says five things at any budget. We have watched businesses double their results without adding a dollar, purely by cutting the script in half.

Where the number usually lands

For a local business in a market this size, a schedule with enough frequency to actually work generally starts in the low four figures a month and scales from there. Below that, we would rather put the money somewhere it can do a complete job than sell you a piece of one.

That is a real constraint, not a sales tactic. It is also why the first conversation we have is about what you are trying to grow, not about what we have to sell. Sometimes the answer is that radio is not the first move, and that search, or an event, or fixing what happens after the call, matters more this year.

If you want the arithmetic run against your actual market and your actual category, that is what the plan conversation is for. No obligation, and you keep the findings either way.