Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Radio industry veteran Dave Newmark is not shy in detailing the inroads the company he founded and leads, Bid4Spots, is making in disrupting the long standing way of doing radio business, radio advertising business. And why should he be?

After all, Google touts a good radio advertising diversification game, but hasn’t even officially launched a radio advertising product! Bid4Spots, on the other hand, is dedicated to the business of radio advertising and has a track record, to boot.

Bid4Spots took another (big) step today in its quest to “build marketplaces for radio advertising that work”:

eBay has selected Bid4Spots to power the eBay Media Marketplace for Radio

How did Bid4Spots garner the high profile deal? I spoke with Newmark today to get his direct take.

I have chatted with Newmark before about Bid4Spots, he is passionate about the problem he is out to solve and believes his company has a concrete, winning formula for all constituencies in the radio advertising buying and selling marketplace.

Newmark created Bid4Spots to help end both advertiser and radio station “frustation with the process of buying and selling last-minute radio time.” Bid4Spots has been hosting weekly online auctions of radio airtime for more than two years.

Why did eBay choose Bid4Spots? Newmark told me his company’s breadth of prime radio advertising inventory availability is unmatched. Bid4Spots is opening up radio advertising inventory to eBay from “over 2300 stations in all 300 top-ranked Arbitron DMAs.”

eBay, on the other hand, is to open up advertisers to Bid4Spots, hopefully. Bid4Spots can quantify and qualify the radio advertising inventory availability it contributes to eBay’s Media Marketplace. eBay, however, is known for its vast numbers of buyers and sellers of goods, not for a base of ready to go advertisers.

eBay itself indirectly acknowledges that its asset base of ”advertisers” is unproven, saying it has “reach and scale among POTENTIAL advertisers.”

Newmark confirmed to me that the eBay-Bid4Spots deal is structured as a “standard revenue sharing commercial agreement.”

Regardless if eBay is able to deliver advertisers, or not, Bid4Spots has further strengthened its position in the battle to “revolutionize” radio ad sales. The Bid4Spots marketplace model and radio station advertising inventory assets were both validated today, big time, by a big player, eBay.

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN