Undeterred By Lack Of Success On TV, eBay Goes For Radio Advertising

from the take-two dept

Wed, Jun 6th 2007 9:55am — Joseph Weisenthal

eBay has announced that it will get into the radio business, by using its auction service to sell off unsold ad inventory. The move is seen as a clear response to Google, which entered the space last year, through an acquisition. What's strange, however, is that eBay has already tried and failed to crack the TV advertising business, so it's not clear why the company thinks that radio will be any different. Ultimately, the issue of ad pricing is a small problem compared to the broader woes facing broadcasters, namely the changing nature of the business. So even if auctions promised marginally better pricing for advertisers, it's hard to see anyone getting too enthusiastic about the service, since it's not tackling a major issue.

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Joel Coehoorn, 6 Jun 2007 @ 11:09am

While I agree they are unlikely to succeed here, you seem to imply that the problem they are trying to solve has to do with pricing. I don't think they see themselves becoming the go-to place for all ad buying or circumventing the established pricing system. They are trying to auction off unsold or surplus ad time that would normally be filled with bad dj banter or self-promotion. Stations would use the ebay auctions only when they are unable to fill their normal quota. This time would sell for less than what they would like, but for more than the $0 they would get for not using the service.
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haywood, 6 Jun 2007 @ 2:43pm

They remind me of Radio Shack
The analogy I present is; they killed off their core business and now jump from this to that thinking this will be the salvation.

Radio shack used to have a good business selling components, resistors, capacitors, connectors, etc. They sold other things like TVs, but components kept the lights on. Sometime not long ago, all the components got squeezed down to a couple little isles and computers, remote control toys, and satellite dish systems expanded to use up the floor space. Problem is; those things can be bought elsewhere for less and the little stores didn't have the room to be players in any of those markets.
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