When buying broadcast media (spot radio or television) you pay for the entire geographic area covered by the radio or television station, even if only 20% of the coverage is in your city. For most cities and counties this means paying to reach people outside of your city or county, therefore delivering significant waste coverage. Also, for most cities and counties the cost of buying the top “Most Popular” stations in their area would be too expensive.
But, when an entire region such as the San Francisco Bay Area purchases broadcast media jointly they all benefit because they can buy the top stations and by dividing the cost among the entire region everyone pays a fraction of what they would have had to pay on their own and there is no “wasted” coverage.
For Example: One of the top radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area is KCBS. A six week media buy on the station typically cost $36,000. If San Francisco County purchased KCBS on their own their cost per listener in San Francisco County would be 50 cents. But when San Francisco purchases the same media buy with all the other nine Bay Area Counties the cost per San Francisco listener is only 5 cents. As you can see from the chart the cost savings for smaller counties is even greater.
KCBS’ 50,000 watt signal reaches all nine Bay Area counties
The 9
Bay Area Counties
| Total Listeners
18+
| Cost Per Listener
Purchased On Own
| Cost Per Listener
Purchased As Group
| Alameda
| 151,205 | $0.24 | $0.05 | Contra Costa
| 145,625 | $0.25 | $0.05 | Marin
| 38,404 | $0.94 | $0.05 | Napa
| 4,946 | $7.28 | $0.05 | San Francisco
| 72,141 | $0.50 | $0.05 | San Mateo
| 92,921 | $0.39 | $0.05 | Santa Clara
| 176,113 | $0.22 | $0.05 | Solano
| 32,030 | $1.87 | $0.05 | Sonoma
| 51,172 | $0.70 | $0.05 | | TOTAL | 755,557 | $36,000.00 | $36,000.00 |
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