StreamGuys has announced that Dick Broadcasting, which owns and operates 19 radio stations across three southeastern U.S. states, has quintupled its monthly advertising revenue since transitioning to StreamGuys’ ad insertion services. StreamGuys adds that Dick Broadcasting has enhanced revenue generation using its programmatic ad services, which automatically fill unsold inventory in ad breaks for live streams and podcasts.
StreamGuys says it has diversified Dick Broadcasting’s advertising strategy by incorporating midroll placements, necessitating a structural change in ad distribution.
“Nielsen had long required Dick Broadcasting to faithfully simulcast its over-the-air streams due to how it reported FM ratings in its markets,” said Tyler Huggins, director of advertising at StreamGuys. “That limited the customer to preroll ads, which, while effective, also limited revenue opportunities for stream monetization. We effectively split its streams into in-market and out-of-market streams, allowing us to insert midrolls within the latter.”
Huggins explained that StreamGuys offers a “waterfall system” that prioritizes direct sold campaigns first, followed by programmatic fulfillment from its network of advertisers. If neither has an impression to serve, StreamGuys returns the opportunity to Dick Broadcasting to place an unsold promo. StreamGuys manages the entire process, from server-side ad insertions to revenue payouts. “Dick Broadcasting communicates open inventory, and we manage all campaigns, advertisers, and invoices,” he said. “We also work with their app developer and web team to pinpoint geographic data, helping us determine whether a listener is inside or outside the market and which ads to serve.”
Turnkey streaming service
Dick Broadcasting also uses StreamGuys’ SGrecast service to create podcasts and side streams from live radio shows, with StreamGuys automatically inserting ads. Additionally, StreamGuys hosts and delivers all of Dick Broadcasting’s streaming content, utilizing StreamGuys’ enterprise CDN to provide live and on-demand content to websites, apps, and smart speakers, among other consumer points. This has resulted in a turnkey streaming service that has reduced costs, streamlined internal labor, and increased revenue.
“We are fortunate to have very dedicated audiences for our streams, many of whom live outside our geographic FM footprints,” said Taylor Dick, vice president of finance and strategic analysis at Dick Broadcasting Company. “We found that we were carrying substantial costs to operate our streaming infrastructure and serving ads that were meaningless to many of our listeners. StreamGuys reduced these costs while effectively creating zones that allow us to serve ads of interest to out-of-market listeners. We can now offer a better listening experience for our entire streaming audience while substantially increasing our revenue through a programmatic service that requires no heavy lifting from within. StreamGuys has helped us manage, monetize, and grow our streaming business more effectively.”
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