Interactive Insider
Broadcasters and classifieds --- working in your market?
By Peter M. Zollman
Offered for first publication rights only
For use: April / May newsletters
”2007, Peter M. Zollman
File opened: April 2, 2007
Last update: April 14, 2007

Broadcasters and classifieds: Working in your market?

By Peter M. Zollman

Who are your major competitors in classifieds? Have you looked around lately and done a serious “reality check?”
Perhaps there’s the AutoTrader, as well as AutoTrader.com or its international equivalent. Maybe a real estate book or two. A guide to apartments and other rentals? Monster.com and Yahoo HotJobs and CareerBuilder, too, unless you’re affiliated with one of them. And of course there are probably Craigslist / Kijiji / Loquo and the like – the free classified sites that are serving consumers and advertisers in markets large and small.
But another competitor is looming, one that offers many of the advantages your newspaper has – a strong local brand, promotion power, “feet on the street” calling on local advertisers, and the ability to undercut you on price. Maybe even offer free local classifieds.
It’s the TV station down the block. Or the local radio station. Or the TV station and the radio station. Or the cable company. Or a handful of radio stations – some of them competitors to each other – working together to take recruitment advertising that once went into the newspaper. Or all of the above.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, of course: If broadcasters can deliver results to their advertisers better, cheaper or faster than you can, they’re entitled. That’s capitalism in action.
The issue for you is, “If they provide results better / cheaper / faster than my newspaper does, how long will my newspaper stay in business?”
Classified Intelligence recently studied broadcasters offering classifieds in the U.S. and globally. In most other countries, frankly, we found limited or no classified advertising offered by broadcasters. But there’s healthy, heavy competition in the U.S. and Canada.
(A free report on the subject is available on our Web site, ClassifiedIntelligence.com. The report was sponsored by CityXpress, which provides classified advertising and auction services to newspapers and broadcasters alike.)
Some of our findings:
∑ In the top 10 markets (by population) in the U.S., 95 percent of the station Web sites reviewed by CI offer one or more classified categories. In smaller markets, 59 percent of the stations we reviewed offer one or more category.
∑ There is low but growing classifieds penetration among radio stations. RegionalHelpWanted.com, AutoMart.com, CareerBuilder.com and CareerBoard.com help radio stations compete, especially in small and mid-size markets.
∑ Cable MSOs (multiple system operators) are getting into the act, too, offering high-tech classifieds including video-on-demand listings (which pinpoint potential buyers, since the individual user can be tracked through set-top boxes), banners and other forms of classifieds. All of the top five MSOs offer some classified services. Comcast Corp., the largest, with 2.4 million subscribers, offers a “classifieds on demand” service allowing advertisers to convert images, text, print ad, catalog pages and even Internet banner ads into automotive listings.
In Canada, CanWest Global Communications Corp. is leading the charge with newspaper / broadcast / online classified products – most notably, Working.com and Driving.ca.
WTVF, the Landmark-owned CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tenn., began offering classifieds last year – not for the revenue, but as a traffic-builder on NewsChannel5.com.
“The strength of our brand, and our reputation in the market, have helped us open up Internet-based classifieds to somewhat of a new audience,” said Melissa Thompson, director of NewsChannel5 Interactive. “We’ve attracted people who were not used to Internet classifieds, but came because they trust our brand and they’ve seen it promoted on our programs.”
Sound familiar? Sounds like what newspapers have been saying for years (except for the word “programs”).
The station even takes a page from a typical newspaper and uses seasonal promotions, for example highlighting lawnmowers or tractors in the spring.
“Our competitors in this space are as much, if not more so, EBay and Craigslist as they are the local newspaper and their online classifieds,” Thompson said, “because our product is a combination of Craigslist and EBay in terms of function.”

In other markets, TV stations aggressively offer recruitment advertising, both on-air and online, frequently featuring “job of the day” in broadcast promotions. RegionalHelpWanted.com, the outgrowth of a small job board launched almost 10 years ago in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., now has 321 sites throughout the U.S. and Canada – many of them languishing, but others generating well over $1 million a year in revenue.

Stations offer classifieds for a wide variety of reasons – revenue, driving traffic to their Web sites, and creating a “community” of users (and advertisers) much like Craigslist.org.

Some broadcasters and cable operators work with the local newspaper, rather than an out-of-market vendor or national brand-name site like Monster.com, AutoTrader.com or Realtor.com.

Might there be a threat in all of this – or an opportunity – in your market?

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Peter M. Zollman is founding principal of Classified Intelligence and the AIM Group, consultancies that work with publishers to improve classified advertising and interactive-media services. He can be reached at (407) 788-2780, pzollman@classifiedintelligence.com.

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