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The Hidden Risk: When Traffic Breaks and What That Means for Revenue · Leading Local Insights

• 0:34
  Rick Ducey: Well, hello, everybody.
• 0:35
  Rick Ducey: Welcome to BIA Advisory Services Leading Local Insights Podcast.
• 0:39
  Rick Ducey: My name is Rick Ducy.
• 0:41
  Rick Ducey: I'm the managing director here at BIA.
• 0:43
  Rick Ducey: Today we're going to be diving into the world of radio and talking to one of the leading companies that continues to innovate in this space.
• 0:50
  Rick Ducey: And we'll find out more about that innovation in just a second.
• 0:53
  Rick Ducey: We're thrilled to have Jim shade Chaudhari here, who is CEO of Marketron, to talk with us about what Marketron is doing and providing traffic as a service, a really important concept.
• 1:05
  Rick Ducey: And as we'll find out, I think sometimes taken for granted or overlooked in some cases at a station's inner client's risk, frankly.
• 1:14
  Rick Ducey: So we'll we'll see how to deal with that.
• 1:16
  Rick Ducey: But uh traffic as a service for many clients is uh meant to manage uh revenue, scale revenue, create some efficiencies by automating workflows within a cloud-based platform to manage sales, inventory, and billing data, which is kind of the engine room of um the radio station business.
• 1:33
  Rick Ducey: So we want to make sure that's working smoothly and well.
• 1:36
  Rick Ducey: So we'll learn more about that in just a moment.
• 1:38
  Rick Ducey: Uh but first, Jim shade, let me just give you a chance to say hello and say a bit about yourself and about Marktron.
• 1:43
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, thanks, Rick.
• 1:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Thanks for having me, first of all.
• 1:46
  Jimshade Chaudhari: It's a pleasure to be on the podcast.
• 1:48
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And uh as Rick said, I'm CEO of Marketron.
• 1:51
  Jimshade Chaudhari: You know, Marketron's been around for over 55 years servicing the the radio industry.
• 1:57
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And uh, you know, we continue to focus on products and services that just help radio broadcasters be more successful, uh especially as uh the space is evolving, right?
• 2:08
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And uh lots of challenges for radio broadcasters.
• 2:10
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And as we talk to customers kind of on a daily-weekly basis, we're just figuring out ways to continue to produce products and services that help uh radio groups be more successful.
• 2:22
  Rick Ducey: So definitely want to get into the products and services and um the theme of innovations that you've you know focused the company on uh for providing your clients uh and their clients.
• 2:32
  Rick Ducey: Um but I want I wanted to um think about something.
• 2:36
  Rick Ducey: Um there's a lot of change in the industry now.
• 2:39
  Rick Ducey: I guess we say that every year, uh, but for sure it's true this year.
• 2:43
  Rick Ducey: Um with you know, um workforce realignment, reductions, um creating new positions around um AI and so on.
• 2:54
  Rick Ducey: Uh so you know, headcounts are down, um the staff makeup is different, different skill sets and so on.
• 3:01
  Rick Ducey: And uh I mentioned, you know, kind of liken trafficking as uh the the engine room, it's not necessarily the most exciting part of the cruise liner, but you don't go anywhere without it.
• 3:12
  Rick Ducey: And as you as people in in management are looking at workforce realignment, uh rationalization, whatever, um, is that a place the trafficking kind of center that workflow where it's not top of mind?
• 3:26
  Rick Ducey: So you make some personnel staffing adjustments, and then all of a sudden, oh we broke something here.
• 3:32
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, it's it's interesting, right?
• 3:34
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Because it's it's definitely not the sexy part of an organization for a radio group.
• 3:38
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But um, the way when we talk to people, we say it's it's critical, right?
• 3:42
  Jimshade Chaudhari: It's a critical function, like you said.
• 3:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, you know, a radio broadcaster can't function without a traffic team.
• 3:50
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, you know, you can have the best sales team, but if you can't deliver on the advertising that they're selling, uh make sure it runs properly, make sure it gets billed properly, um, then you're not gonna be successful.
• 4:02
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And traffic is one of those things where it's, you know, it's it's kind of humming on the background and it's working and until it isn't.
• 4:09
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And and and usually when people uh focus on traffic is when they have a problem.
• 4:16
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And it's usually when a traffic manager decides that they're either going to retire or leave for one reason or another.
• 4:23
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, I was thinking about this.
• 4:25
  Rick Ducey: It's it's um I'm not sure that many companies, you know, they they probably yeah, in theory we should do this and we'll do it tomorrow.
• 4:32
  Rick Ducey: But some sort of succession planning or cross-training, so you don't get left with just uh one person that knows everything.
• 4:38
  Rick Ducey: And when that institutional memory goes out the front door, you know, so does your traffic system.
• 4:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, it's it's really interesting, right?
• 4:46
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Some sometimes when we think about traffic and we're discussing it with folks, we're saying traffic is it's a critical function, but it's not a strategic function.
• 4:54
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah.
• 4:54
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And what we mean by that is, like I said, you can't run a radio station without a traffic function, but it doesn't differentiate your station from another station.
• 5:05
  Jimshade Chaudhari: You know, advertisers, if they're picking between station A and B, they're gonna assume whatever advertising they get sold is going to run properly, um, on time, and it's gonna be built.
• 5:16
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so they're not making their decision based on who has the best traffic department, they're making their decision based on the content, the audience that can be reached, the sales strategy of the broadcaster, etc.
• 5:30
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But from a traffic perspective, because it's not strategic and most people aren't thinking about it, they're not investing in traffic to really optimize it and make it as uh efficient as it can be.
• 5:43
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And since it's not strategic, it's underinvested in.
• 5:45
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And what that means is there's a better way to do traffic for most radio broadcasters.
• 5:51
  Jimshade Chaudhari: They just haven't thought about it because it hasn't been a problem right now.
• 5:56
  Rick Ducey: And that, I mean, kind of problem-driven solutions versus um, you know, forward-thinking um solutions um is is a challenge and an issue, I think, for a lot of companies.
• 6:06
  Rick Ducey: And uh I'll um do a sports analogy here, which will make my friends and colleagues howl, since I'm not a sports person.
• 6:12
  Rick Ducey: Um, but you know, um the idea that it's critical but not strategic to use a sports metaphor, torturing it, though I will be doing um, you need to work the foundations.
• 6:24
  Rick Ducey: I mean, so you you get out there, you know, and the coach has you just you know run sprints and and do basic, you know, basic, basic maneuvers, and that's what you build on.
• 6:32
  Rick Ducey: And that's sort of trafficking's role.
• 6:34
  Rick Ducey: I mean, you it is competitive to the extent that your customers expect things to work, and then you can shine where you have clear, you know, modes or differentiators in the market.
• 6:44
  Rick Ducey: But if you don't deliver, that's that's you know, it doesn't work.
• 6:47
  Rick Ducey: And so clients have a certain level of expectation for what's going to happen, and they may not think about it either.
• 6:53
  Rick Ducey: And then when it doesn't happen, that's bad news for everybody.
• 6:57
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, it's kind of one of those, it's it's a table stakes function, right?
• 7:00
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Everyone just assumes it works.
• 7:02
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And it's fine when it's working.
• 7:04
  Jimshade Chaudhari: The problem is, since it's not considered a kind of a strategic function within a broadcaster, they're not investing in optimizing it or creating systems.
• 7:13
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so that means a lot of the knowledge is sitting in those traffic managers' heads.
• 7:19
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so when one of those traffic managers leaves, it's it's not just the fact that you gotta backfill that person, you gotta go recruit someone, you gotta hire them, you gotta train them.
• 7:28
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But that institutional knowledge that's sitting in that traffic manager's head because it hasn't been systematized, is gone.
• 7:36
  Rick Ducey: So some of that is on the station.
• 7:37
  Rick Ducey: Then you need to be aware of this and you know, have plans to mitigate it, or you know, cross-training, something like that.
• 7:43
  Rick Ducey: Um, but some of that you help provide some solution in there.
• 7:48
  Rick Ducey: I mean, it's a system, so people need to do everything themselves.
• 7:52
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, honestly, in in conversation that we've been having with our customers, there's a lot on their minds and there's a lot on their plates.
• 7:58
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And as you mentioned, I think at the beginning, people are operating with big leaner teams, so they can't do everything.
• 8:03
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so, you know, we are the people who have created the traffic system.
• 8:08
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We built the software.
• 8:09
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We've actually had people outsourcing traffic to us for over a decade.
• 8:14
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And it started out on in emergency situations, right?
• 8:17
  Jimshade Chaudhari: A traffic manager had some medical leave and they were gonna be gone for a couple months, and people used to come to us and say, Can you help out?
• 8:25
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And we'd help out where possible.
• 8:28
  Jimshade Chaudhari: What we've seen over, I'd say, last six six to twelve months is those uh frequencies of or the the frequency of people asking for that kind of help has just increased.
• 8:40
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So maybe we used to get one of those one once every three, four months.
• 8:45
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We're seeing it monthly now, right?
• 8:46
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Especially at some of the bigger groups where you know it's almost like whack-able.
• 8:50
  Jimshade Chaudhari: They have a traffic manager of in one market or for one station, and then they go replace that one, and then all of a sudden it happens again.
• 8:59
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And I think it's that even another market.
• 9:01
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And I think it's this trend as we've been, you know, once again talking to the customers, a lot of traffic managers have been in their roles for a really long time.
• 9:11
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So they have a lot of that institutional knowledge, but they're getting closer to retirement or just moving out of the workforce.
• 9:17
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And there really isn't a strong bunch of traffic managers sitting anywhere within an organization within a broadcaster to kind of pick up that slack.
• 9:25
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so it's yeah, that's just a trend that we've noticed is that we're getting more and more of these requests where it's like, hey, this traffic manager's left, or this traffic manager is really close to you know, retirement is probably going to move on.
• 9:39
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And if you treat those kind of as one-offs, we're talking about like traffic is critical, so you have to have that function.
• 9:45
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But I think the decision on what you do with traffic is actually a strategic decision, whether you keep doing what you're doing in-house or you decide to move to a different model.
• 9:55
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, I definitely bought by that.
• 9:56
  Rick Ducey: And it's um is think about um staff positions and support um models like we're we're doing now.
• 10:04
  Rick Ducey: I mean, if I'm running a radio station and you know, I got the word from corporate, um, I have you know, X number less positions.
• 10:12
  Rick Ducey: Um one way to do that is just put you know X next to the positions and they're gone.
• 10:17
  Rick Ducey: Another way is we need to rethink how we're staffing these positions and who's in those positions.
• 10:22
  Rick Ducey: We can't just have the same roles and job descriptions we've had for the past X number of years.
• 10:27
  Rick Ducey: You know, we need somebody who has this skill set, this knowledge set, the ability to learn, you know, these several new things and a new job.
• 10:35
  Rick Ducey: And one of the new jobs is to work with something like your traffic as a system.
• 10:41
  Rick Ducey: And uh it's probably a different role than stations used to have.
• 10:44
  Rick Ducey: And these staff members with all institutional knowledge, that's great.
• 10:49
  Rick Ducey: But one of the things from a platform perspective is you can move some of that on, you know, there's AI and everything else.
• 10:55
  Rick Ducey: But you know, a lot of that knowledge properly belongs probably in a in a you know, um IT platform, uh, and people learn to operate it.
• 11:04
  Rick Ducey: But that should be something where it's more transferable than if somebody all of a sudden was I used to work with somebody who would say, uh, you know, somebody leaves and got hit by a bus.
• 11:14
  Rick Ducey: And uh she would say, well, let's be a little bit more pleasant.
• 11:17
  Rick Ducey: Let's say somebody wins the lottery.
• 11:19
  Rick Ducey: You know, how are we gonna replace them?
• 11:21
  Rick Ducey: So I mean, so stations that come to you in an emergency sounds like a growth area.
• 11:25
  Rick Ducey: So I guess two thoughts there.
• 11:27
  Rick Ducey: One, is that something that you're welcoming?
• 11:29
  Rick Ducey: Or it's like, well, we're really a software company, but we'll become a service company to help our clients out.
• 11:34
  Rick Ducey: Um, but if it's a growth company, how how are you planning to approach that going forward?
• 11:39
  Rick Ducey: Is that gonna be like a um leading offer uh in addition to the platform offer?
• 11:45
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, so so some some good questions there, right?
• 11:48
  Jimshade Chaudhari: I I think from our standpoint, we're always just looking at ways when we talk to our customers on on how we can help them.
• 11:54
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And you know, we've provided traffic systems for you know multiple decades at this point.
• 12:01
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Right.
• 12:01
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um we've we've built uh you know a digital system that integrates in with our traffic system.
• 12:06
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We built a modern way to uh deal with payments and electronic payments.
• 12:11
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And we just look at you know, traffic as a service or task as as we like to call it, really as a modern way for to for traffic operations.
• 12:20
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Right.
• 12:20
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And I think it's a it's it's really it's not just the actual function itself, it's the mind share that it takes at a radio group, right?
• 12:29
  Jimshade Chaudhari: This is something they shouldn't think about.
• 12:31
  Jimshade Chaudhari: The same way an advertiser, when they're buying advertising at a station, just assumes that their advertising is going to run, they're gonna be built properly.
• 12:38
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Of course, stations should just, I mean, we are the experts in the space, we can help them out.
• 12:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And, you know, we have moved it away from an emergency service because the problem has become for us, I mean, it's a combination of technology and people that provide this service, right?
• 12:54
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We have expert traffic managers, so they're they're more efficient than probably most traffic managers at stations.
• 13:01
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, and then we're giving them technology tools to become even more efficient.
• 13:06
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so we don't offer a service anymore that's an emergency service at this point.
• 13:12
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So we're getting having these conversations with our customers to say, look, this is a strategic decision.
• 13:16
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Here are all the reasons you should make this move.
• 13:20
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And first, you know, for some uh groups, they want to test the water's dip thier toe in and give us one or two stations.
• 13:27
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Others have given us all their stations.
• 13:29
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, but that's a big decision for groups, right?
• 13:32
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So they don't make that within a week or two weeks.
• 13:35
  Jimshade Chaudhari: They really need to plan that out.
• 13:37
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And uh we've seen really strong demand, right?
• 13:39
  Jimshade Chaudhari: I think a lot of folks are trying to figure out how to become much more efficient with the teams that they have, um, the teams that they're forced to work with.
• 13:49
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so those folks are coming to us.
• 13:51
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And you know, we we've seen really, really strong demand for the service.
• 13:56
  Jimshade Chaudhari: I mean, uh, you know, we have a list out until I think the end of August at this point of customers that want to come on board.
• 14:03
  Rick Ducey: That's all good news.
• 14:04
  Rick Ducey: So you I mean you work you're deep and deeply embedded in the radio industry, you're all different kinds of um operators, sizes, groups, standalones.
• 14:12
  Rick Ducey: Um is it and it can't be one size fits all.
• 14:16
  Rick Ducey: How is this evolving across the industry and the different variabilities for the situations of radio stations and groups?
• 14:23
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, you know, you know, one of the so I mentioned we've had this service around for about 10 years as an emergency service.
• 14:30
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And the reason it's really come to the forefront is I think just a bunch of trends that are converging.
• 14:35
  Jimshade Chaudhari: One, we talked about, you know, the uh traffic managers kind of getting to a retirement age or moving on from their roles.
• 14:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, the second is we've seen some of the largest customers outsource, right?
• 14:49
  Jimshade Chaudhari: iHeart's outsourced all their traffic, Cumulus has outsourced all their traffic, but those big groups, they have the scale to go and do that on their own.
• 14:58
  Jimshade Chaudhari: The majority of customers don't.
• 15:00
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And that's where kind of our service comes in, right?
• 15:03
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We help make that a possibility for them because most of our customers couldn't go and outsource it.
• 15:09
  Jimshade Chaudhari: They don't have the number of stations to do it.
• 15:12
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Um, and they don't have the relationships and the know-how on the technology side, right?
• 15:16
  Jimshade Chaudhari: When when I look at Marketron and our role for the radio industry, we really want to be a technology partner for the radio industry.
• 15:23
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Right.
• 15:23
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Right.
• 15:24
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We've we've been, like I mentioned, we have you know digital products, modern payment product.
• 15:28
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Now we've got a modern way to, you know, uh provide traffic, and then we have you know the actual traffic systems that we offer.
• 15:36
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so this solution works for you know somebody who owns one to two stations, and it works for somebody who owns over 100 stations, right?
• 15:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: The complexity of those stations varies, and there isn't a single price, right?
• 15:49
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We look at each of those stations on an individual basis and look at how much work it's gonna take.
• 15:53
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so we have dynamic pricing around um the service that we offer it.
• 15:58
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But it it can work for almost anybody in our customer base that's on uh our visual traffic or Marketron traffic systems.
• 16:05
  Rick Ducey: So the focus now, of course, is cross-platform um audio, you know, in the case of radio, um, so much is exciting on the buy side, uh happily for things like streaming, podcasting, and linear broadcast audio.
• 16:19
  Rick Ducey: Um there's been some, there's always some recent study showing uh how viable and important broadcast radio is uh is sort of the foundation for an audio first campaign.
• 16:29
  Rick Ducey: Um but even radio stations are into streaming video, um, CTV and other forms of streaming video.
• 16:35
  Rick Ducey: I I talked to one small medium market operator about a year or so ago and just saying, hey, you know, how's the market?
• 16:41
  Rick Ducey: Um, which uh in those days we thought it was crazy.
• 16:44
  Rick Ducey: These days we think it's even crazier.
• 16:45
  Rick Ducey: I'm sure in six months we'll think it's even crazier yet.
• 16:48
  Rick Ducey: Um but it but it's uh but he would he said, you know, actually CTV is our biggest growth category, um, and not just in percent, you know, it's becoming the biggest growth category in dollars.
• 16:59
  Rick Ducey: I was like, wow, that's really interesting.
• 17:00
  Rick Ducey: So that I mean, that's a new product set.
• 17:03
  Rick Ducey: It's a new, you know, sell, it's new people, new expertise.
• 17:06
  Rick Ducey: Uh and obviously you got to book that inventory, traffic it, invoice it, and you don't want to send the customer 15 different invoices for one campaign.
• 17:13
  Rick Ducey: No.
• 17:14
  Rick Ducey: Is that where you see the industry headed?
• 17:16
  Rick Ducey: And is that how your traffic systems are evolving to support that kind of um execution, the workplace, uh workflow efficiency?
• 17:24
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, I mean, I I think you know, the the radio industry has made a bet on digital, right, to offset the decline and kind of the traditional radio advertising.
• 17:33
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And we built a product almost five years ago now called Next Digital, which allows broadcasters, um, sales reps to basically create a proposal that's omni-channel, right?
• 17:44
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Includes the digital, includes uh the traditional radio, and it actually takes that proposal, converts it into an order, pushes the radio part into our traffic system for execution, pushes the digital part into various DSPs for execution, brings all that stuff together, single uh bill, a single invoice you can send to your customer and then they can pay electronically, right?
• 18:06
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So, you know, our our uh kind of mantra has really just support the radio industry, right, and this evolution that they're going through.
• 18:14
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so digital is is the bet, right?
• 18:17
  Jimshade Chaudhari: That that that the industry has made.
• 18:19
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so we're trying to make it easier and easier for people to execute on it because the conversation I've been having about digital with our customers hasn't been about should we do digital anymore?
• 18:30
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And or is digital gonna grow?
• 18:32
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Yeah, or is digital gonna grow?
• 18:34
  Jimshade Chaudhari: I think we're seeing you know, everyone leaning into digital, they're seeing revenue growth.
• 18:38
  Jimshade Chaudhari: The conversation has really switched into margin and profitability.
• 18:42
  Jimshade Chaudhari: How do you do digital at scale in a way that's efficient?
• 18:46
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And that's kind of for like traffic as a service for us again.
• 18:49
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Once again, it's that efficiency theme that we hear over and over again, right?
• 18:53
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Is doing these things are important.
• 18:56
  Jimshade Chaudhari: You have to do it to be competitive, to stay relevant.
• 18:59
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But how do you do it at scale?
• 19:01
  Jimshade Chaudhari: How do you do it systematically?
• 19:02
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And that's where we've really put a lot of effort into creating systems and specifically for radio, right?
• 19:08
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We are the only digital platform that connects into our traffic system, right?
• 19:13
  Jimshade Chaudhari: So that when you have a uh proposal that's omni-channel across uh traditional radio and digital, we can push that down into the traffic system.
• 19:23
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We can push all the billing lines down into traffic systems so you're not having to duplicate data entry from one system to another, which you know causes errors and obviously takes time.
• 19:32
  Jimshade Chaudhari: But we're trying to we've created an end-to-end system for radio groups that want to sell digital.
• 19:39
  Rick Ducey: Well, you've been doing this for a long time, and you know, um I I don't often um hear broadcast, radio or TV um spoken of as like the leading innovation industry in the in the business.
• 19:52
  Rick Ducey: Uh, but he's done a lot of innovation uh for industries that's probably reluctant to innovate, uh, you know, frankly, in many in many ways.
• 19:58
  Rick Ducey: So that's great.
• 19:59
  Rick Ducey: And you know, a lot locked together and definitely at the leading edge of where the business needs to be, and providing those inputs and insights and platforms so that they can start to focus on margin growth and you know, revenue growth and and um going into the digital products that's where where they really need to be.
• 20:16
  Rick Ducey: So that's all that's um good to hear.
• 20:18
  Rick Ducey: We've covered a lot, Jim shade.
• 20:20
  Rick Ducey: Is there anything else that we should touch base on before we close up for today?
• 20:25
  Jimshade Chaudhari: You know, I I think it's a uh where we kind of started from, right?
• 20:29
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Radio is going through a major evolution.
• 20:31
  Jimshade Chaudhari: There's a lot on kind of the executives' minds and the leaders on where they should focus their efforts.
• 20:38
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And I think, you know, we've been a partner to the industry, we're gonna continue to be a partner to the industry.
• 20:43
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We don't focus on any other verticals other than radio, right?
• 20:47
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so we really dive in deep with our customers to try to understand their pain points.
• 20:51
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And I think, you know, tasks is just, you know, the the latest thing that we focused effort on.
• 20:57
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And it's really from customer demand, right?
• 20:59
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We see the trends that are emerging behind the scenes, and we, you know, we try to educate people on, hey, we're seeing this with other groups.
• 21:06
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Have you thought about something like this, right?
• 21:08
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Have you thought about what would happen if this happens to you and how do you get in front of it?
• 21:13
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so I think for us as Marketron, you know, we believe in radio, we believe in kind of the evolution, and we want to be a partner that helps people, you know, get to that next level, whether it's you know becoming uh, you know, being able to more easily sell omni-channel campaigns, whether it's being more efficient with their traffic, whether it's collecting their payments faster through electronic payments.
• 21:36
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And so, you know, you'll see Marketron continue to focus on radio kind of moving forward.
• 21:41
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And uh, you know, if if anyone out there is listening and then knows of a problem that's happening uh from a radio perspective that you're not seeing a solution for, you know, feel free to reach out to us at Marketron.
• 21:53
  Jimshade Chaudhari: Feel free to reach out to me at Marketron.
• 21:55
  Jimshade Chaudhari: We're always open to ideas.
• 21:56
  Jimshade Chaudhari: And like I said, uh really trying to make sure that the solutions that we produce are not just great technology solutions, but they're actually helping solve real problems for our customers.
• 22:05
  Rick Ducey: Yeah, I'm hopeful that um people who listen to this will come back and have a different perspective on what traffic means.
• 22:11
  Rick Ducey: It's like, you know, I need to change my lens on what traffic is.
• 22:15
  Rick Ducey: It really is uh an important area that we shouldn't take for granted.
• 22:18
  Rick Ducey: Make sure it's staffed well, make sure we're using uh you know platforms that are efficient for workflow and um keep us in the game.
• 22:25
  Rick Ducey: You know, it's it's probably the um the best news is um you it's you don't want you don't want to hear about traffic because you just assume it's gonna work uh and you Want to be in that position.
• 22:35
  Rick Ducey: And how do you make sure you you stay in that position?
• 22:37
  Rick Ducey: Because you'd want to be out competing on uh areas where you can really show some differentiation.
• 22:42
  Rick Ducey: It's like, well, you should hire us because you know our stuff works.
• 22:46
  Rick Ducey: It's like that's pretty exciting.
• 22:47
  Rick Ducey: Thank you.
• 22:47
  Rick Ducey: Uh, what else do you do?
• 22:49
  Rick Ducey: Uh and you you helped them you helped them lead that strategic dialogue to really stay in the game and look at some growth, which is great.
• 22:56
  Rick Ducey: And integrating the linear business with the traditional business and kind of um one campaign, cross-platform, one invoice, and it just works, is a really great place to be.
• 23:06
  Rick Ducey: Um well, thank you so much for being with us um today and all of the insights and data uh and advice you shared.
• 23:12
  Rick Ducey: I hope people take that to heart.
• 23:13
  Rick Ducey: There's there's a lot of um good information and and perspective there.
• 23:17
  Rick Ducey: And uh boy, it's um coming into the second half of 2026.
• 23:21
  Rick Ducey: So good luck, good luck with the uh second half of the year.
• 23:24
  Rick Ducey: Um, appreciate your being here as always, and it's always fun to talk with you.
• 23:28
  Rick Ducey: I really enjoy it.
• 23:29
  Rick Ducey: Um and for everybody else, thank you for being with us.
• 23:32
  Rick Ducey: Thank you for listening.
• 23:33
  Rick Ducey: Thank you for joining us.
• 23:34
  Rick Ducey: If you have any questions or ideas for things you'd like us to cover, people you like us to speak with, uh to bring to you, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
• 23:42
  Rick Ducey: You can reach us at podcast@ BIA.com.
• 23:46
  Rick Ducey: And we look forward to bringing you more insightful conversations like this one on local media throughout the year ahead.
• 23:51
  Rick Ducey: Jim shade, thanks again.
• 23:53
  Rick Ducey: Thanks, Thank you, everyone.