Here's to Anheuser-Busch, Southland's top radio advertiser in '89.

Here's to Anheuser-Busch, Southland's top radio advertiser in '89

Radio advertising volume for all Southland stations reached $375 million last year

Anheuser-Busch was the biggest advertiser on Los Angeles radio during 1989, spending more than $5.17 million for air time here, according to a new survey by the Southern California Broadcasters Association.

Gordon Mason, president of the radio broadcasters' association, said the recently released survey covered 963 advertisers and marked the first time a radio broadcasters' association in any of the 30 top U.S. markets has kept track of yearly spending by individual advertisers. In previous years the association measured only the total dollar volume of ad spending in the Los Angeles market, which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Mason said the new survey is designed to help radio stations and their advertisers. It will help radio stations by giving them "the ability to analyze their own business to get a handle on its strengths and weaknesses," Mason said. He said it will help advertisers by letting them know how much their competitors are spending on radio ad time. In some cases, he said, advertisers have already increased their spending after learning how much their competitors are investing in radio.

Mason said the survey also tracked advertising by industry category. The category of automobile and motorcycle manufacturers' associations, for example, led all others. The auto dealer associations spent $41.57 million on radio advertising during the year, representing 13 percent of the $375 million total of radio ad sales for 1989 in the L.A. market.

Second among industry categories was financial service advertising, which accounted for $23.77 million. The category included Security Pacific Bank ($1.7 million), Great Western Bank ($1.62 million) and Wells Fargo ($1.58 million).

Third in industry categories was beverage advertising, which totaled $19.72 million. Besides Anheuser-Busch, leaders in this category included Pepsi-Cola ($2 million), Miller Brewing ($1.96 million) and Coca-Cola ($1.75 million).

Another big buyer of radio ad time was the Los Angeles television industry. Mason said stations KABC, KCBS, KCOP, KNBC, KTLA and KTTV spent a combined $9.22 million to advertise their TV shows on radio.

The new survey of individual advertisers is called L.A. Radio X-Ray and is produced for the Southern California Broadcasters Association by Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co., a North Hollywood-based CPA firm.

Mason said the broadcasters never before produced such a survey because "the stations have been reluctant in the past to reveal this confidential, proprietary information to a stranger." But the stations have lost some of their reluctance after finding they can safely entrust their confidential sales figures to Miller, Kaplan, which for some time has tallied the broadcasters association's monthly, quarterly and yearly surveys of L.A. radio market advertising expenditures, Mason said.

The broadcasters association president said similar associations in other top radio markets are considering surveys like the L.A. Radio X-Ray. He said it may evolve into a national survey that would track radio advertising spending by individual advertisers.