Townsquare Media embraces a Wider World with automation to streamline network/barter ad management
Because WO Traffic – Radio Interchange was still in development when Townsquare converted to WO Traffic in 2016, Townsquare was faced with a choice.
They could either return to manual handling of their network/barter contracts, which was a daunting prospect, or find a system to handle their barter automatically. After considering their options, Townsquare contracted to use a third-party’s system to automate their barter processes, fully intending to use it as a permanent solution. Although that system served for years as an alternative to manual dubbing, scheduling, and affidavit completion, over time Townsquare experienced challenges with some aspects of using it, especially given their high barter and cash comp volume.
One challenge was the amount of manual work that was involved on the front end of the process. Townsquare had to individually build all of their network barter and cash comp orders into WO Traffic as placeholder contracts, making sure to keep up with constant changes, additions, and cancellations throughout the year. They then had to create materials and manually enter dayplaced (and often dayparted) material instructions into WO Traffic for each network order. Finally, the material numbers for each order had to be manually transferred to the third-party’s system for dubbing and affidavit completion. Townsquare estimates that the duplication of effort for the entire workflow consumed upwards of 2500 person-hours in a year, plus an additional four to six hundred hours spent every December entering new orders, or adjusting existing ones, to match the networks’ contracts for the following year.