September 12, 2011
Fees! Fees! Fees!
A media buyer needs to know about any and all excess fees prior to issuing a Time Order or an Insertion Order. For instance, if the radio station is going to do a remote broadcast as part of the negotiation, the rep needs to tell the buyer that a non-commissionable talent fee of $200 (certainly not more than that) will be required for each remote included in the value-added packaging. One station even charged another $225 for the “call-ins” portion of the remote. If that’s what the station charges, then it is not value-added anymore, is it? No, it is something the buyer is paying for, which takes it out of the “value-added” category.
Some stations will give online exposure to the advertiser as value-added. That is provided, of course, that the online exposure is free! If the station needs to charge for it, it is no longer value-added. Reps have been known to “tweek” the negotiated spot rates by $5, $10, or $15 each and attach those rates to their online orders. If they do this, when the invoice comes in, and all of the rates that show up on the invoice as $5, $10, or $15 less than what had been negotiated, the buyer has an accounting nightmare on his/her hands. The buyer is not happy either, because if the rep could have lowered the negotiated rates at the negotiation table by $5, $10, or $15, it should have been done then, not after the fact when the rep needs to attach a dollar rate to the “free online value-added.”
Finally, buyers don’t want to hear anything else about any “other” kinds of fees – service fee, handling fee, no way, no how.
Let’s say what we mean, and mean what we say, and let’s put everything in writing!
