1. THE DAILYTELEGRAPH TUESDAY,AUGUST14,2007 * * *
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08701 690803
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0845 600 9006
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PORTSMEDIA began by
offering sponsored
broadcasts to local radio
stations; but
diversification into new
channels and topics has left its
founder with growing pangs. “I
have no idea how you write a
business proposal,” Jonny Gould
was told by his father. “But make
sure there are no spelling
mistakes and work out how much
it’s going to cost you first!”
It was not the most promising
start for the young sports
enthusiast’s business career.
Having discovered his ball
control skills were average at
best, Jonny Gould resorted to
working as a sports newsreader
for the BBC local radio station in
Birmingham. After moving to a
rival commercial radio station, he
set off to seek his fortune in
London.
To his surprise, he was able to
negotiate the sponsorship of radio
broadcasts transmitted on 125
stations reporting on the 1992
return of South Africa to the
international rugby scene, when
they played England at
Twickenham. “I was making it up
as I went along,” admits Mr
Gould, “but the proposal was
approved and I suddenly realised
the potential for sponsorship
sales on radio sports reports.”
Without delay, he formed his
Sportsmedia Broadcasting
company. Then he waited. It took
another 13 months before he was
able to secure his next
sponsorship contract. The next
deal came just 13 days later. The
long, painful start-up phase had
taught Mr Gould to focus on
exactly what he was selling:
guaranteed “live-to-air”
broadcasts from the event the
company was sponsoring.
Business began to pour in. “On
one day in 1994 we did four live
outside broadcasts in one day,”
says Mr Gould. “It was going out
of control and I had to take on
three new staff in 24 hours.”
The flamboyant young
entrepreneur had hit on a formula
that brought benefits to all
parties. Local and regional radio
stations got free sports content,
while the sponsors enjoyed the
DavidGould
Commercialdirector,
PCWorldBusiness
JONNY Gould is right to diversify
and needs to act now. This is a
lesson for other small
businesses in that they
constantly have to react
to market changes and
new technologies.
The media have
become very
sophisticated, with
people now gathering
information using a wide
range of sources. While radio has
been very successful in
maintaining its market share
since the emergence of the
internet, most media companies
have been investing in other
ways to reach people.
Sportsmedia needs to ensure
its propositions are unique and
compelling. Gould should invest
in technologies which can deliver
news and other content via
internet radio, WAP, text
services and podcasts.
The real interest at
the moment is with
Web 2.0.
This adds interactive
elements to websites
and will allow much
greater engagement
between customers and
sponsors.
This will really distinguish
Sportsmedia from traditional
news delivery services and attract
potential sponsors.
TELEGRAPHBUSINESSCLUB.CO.UK
TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDY
FlamboyantentrepreneurJonnyGouldhascarvedanicheforhimselfovertheairwaves,reportsDavidSumnerSmith
On air: Jonny Gould’s Sportsmedia company has taken off since the early Nineties, but he admits he’s ‘still having to make it up as I go along’
EXPERTVIEW
assurance of guaranteed
exposure within sports news
bulletins and live outside
broadcasts. Scores of independent
radio stations and national
networks of local stations leapt at
the chance.
Sportsmedia now supplies its
sports content to more than 100
stations. Its content is sponsored
by over 20 firms such as Paddy
Power, T-Mobile and Nationwide
Building Society. The total
audience is up to 5m people
depending on the popularity of
the sports events under way, and
listeners hear the sponsors’
messages an average of three
times per week.
The broadcasting agency
invested in five new studios early
last year as well as technology to
enable the sports stories to be
localised for each radio station.
National sports stories are now
combined with coverage of local
and regional sports events and
personalities. This gives it a
bespoke, local feel that is popular
with audiences and has helped to
sustain the company’s growth.
Annual sales grew by 15pc last
year to more than £750,000. The
technology that makes this
localisation possible presents a
serious threat to traditional radio
stations, however. Sports fans do
not need to listen to local radio
stations for news. They can opt for
RSS “news feeds” on their
computer terminals about the
exact topics in which they are
interested or receive news text
messages to their mobile phones.
Mr Gould has reinvested his
profits in two ways to counter this
threat. His new footballaudio.com
website transfers radio-style
reporting on to the web and adds
competitions, podcasts, video
footage and RSS feeds.
Not only is it proving a good
shop-window for the company
and attracting website
sponsorship, it is also being sold
as a “white label” product that
other websites can use under
their own branding. Sportsmedia
supplies a daily football podcast
on Nationwide’s football website
and has its own Football Audio
channel on i-Tunes.
Mr Gould expects footballaudio.
com to take a 10pc share of sales,
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TAX law, allowing small
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ACCORDING to research from
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What’snew
forclub
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thisweek
By Philip Smith
HONESTY is the best policy,
according to Mark Roy, founder of
The REaD Group, an organisation
that helps direct mail companies
to keep their data lists clean.
“Often the temptation is to
oversell, just to win the contract
and put food on the table,” said
Roy, 46. “Don’t: it just does you a
disservice. Talk common sense to
people. It’s pretty hard for anyone
to argue with that. The secret is to
be honest and don’t be greedy or
try to pull the wool over people’s
eyes.”
It’s worked for Roy. The Kent-
based business now has a £15.5m
turnover generating £2.1m pre tax
profits. It employs 85 people, with
Roy owning 70pc of the company.
Three other directors own 10pc
each – the result of an incentive
package. “You can’t do it on your
own. If you try, the business will
fall apart. You need others to
bounce ideas off,” he said.
REaD sells information to those
sending “junk” mail. Using its
data, lists can be cleansed,
removing those who have moved
or died. It costs about 60p to send
each piece. “If big chunks are
going to people who are not going
to respond, it is clearly a waste of
money,” he said.
There are 400 companies that
account for 78pc of all junk mail –
3.2bn items, said Roy. These days
companies can pay a licence fee
to use the lists. Paying upfront
helps control cash flow. But when
REaD started in 1993, they paid
for each name used. At 20p a
name, the savings are obvious.
Roy knows his information is
correct because it comes direct
from the public. His first list was a
file of those who had recently
moved house. Then came the idea
to include the recently deceased.
“It can be distressing to receive a
letter to someone who has just
died,” said Roy.
When registering a death,
relatives are also encouraged to
add the details to the
bereavement register. It’s free and
within a short time all mail to the
deceased person stops – because
REaD passes the information to
the direct mail companies.
The details can be posted
online but most come in via a
reply-paid envelope given out
with the death certificates. Again,
it was an easy sell. With REaD
providing the envelopes, the UK’s
registrars save some £120,000 a
year in stationery, said Roy.
Offering a simple way to save
money is the backbone of the
REaD sales proposition. But
according to Roy, you need more
than that. “You need belief in
what you do. The truer I am to
myself, the more successful I
have become.”
But what if you simply don’t
want direct mail because of
environmental concerns or fears
over identity theft?
For a small fee, householders
can go to www.itsmypost.com and
select those organisations they
want to block. “Under the Data
Protection Act they are then
prohibited from processing your
data,” he added. “I know it’s
clichéd but this is win-win-win.
We win, as we get paid. Our
clients win as they save money
and the mail recipient wins as
they don’t get unwanted mail.”Don’t oversell: Mark Roy, of REaD
SECRETSOFSUCCESS
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MichaelDean
Groupmarketingmanager,
NationalComputingCentre
WITH a growing number of
revenue streams, each at different
stages of evolution,
Sportsmedia has a good
balance of retained
clients and new
opportunities. The
danger is that Jonny
Gould’s focus on new
areas might be
detrimental to the
service provided to existing
customers. Indeed, Google is
advising visitors to footballaudio.
com that this site may damage
their computer. Not good for
sponsor traffic.
Gould needs to expand his
management team so that
Sportsmedia provides an
appropriate level of service to
existing customers while helping
fledgling business streams grow.
With the internet, digital TV
and now DAB radio we
have seen the
fragmentation of the
traditional broadcast
markets. Sponsors,
however, will still want
to reach consumers
and will turn to
organisations that have
the reach in multiple sub-
markets. With Gould’s eye for an
opportunity, Sportsmedia is well
placed to take advantage of this,
but only if it keeps its existing
customers happy.
ColinFarrington
Directorgeneral,Chartered
InstituteOfPublicRelations
LIKE many entrepreneurs, Jonny
Gould is a mixture of high
confidence and self-
deprecation. But there’s
a sharp strategic brain
here also. His switch
into personal finance
information seems a
stroke of genius when
many consumers are
restructuring their
budgets as interest rates
continue to rise remorselessly.
People are more hungry than
ever for easy-to-digest financial
news and analysis.
But if Gould is to continue his
run, he will at least need to look
a little more conventional. He
will need committed specialists
on his team; people who will
share his values and who he can
work with but who will be earth-
bound too. That means
communicating that he is
more than an
opportunistic wheeler-
dealer, that his
enterprises have long-
term growth and are
based on market and
customer-orientated
research.
A good public relations
adviser will be able to show him
how to do this, as well as using
his story to illustrate and to
continue the Jonny Gould “magic
touch”.
but believes it will be
overshadowed by diversification
into new subject areas on radio.
Sponsored content covering
environmental topics will start
soon, after a move into finance
reporting that started early this
year.
“We don’t bother with
traditional stock market reports
and interviews with City traders,”
Mr Gould explains. “Instead, we
decided to focus on easily
accessible, consumer-oriented
news stories about interest rates
and the costs of things such as
banking, utilities and insurance
that have a direct impact on our
audience.”
Having had the idea in
November, Mr Gould attracted IG
Index as the first sponsor the
following month, signed up some
initial radio stations in January
and profitably taken the
90-second, daily ‘finance news’
broadcasts to air by February.
Audience responses from stations
such as Classic Gold have been
very positive and the daily slots
will soon grow from late
afternoon to breakfast-time as
well. The audience is set to grow
to 2m a week.
Mr Gould has just done a deal
to syndicate sports and business
news to Capital Gold’s 25 stations
across the UK. “That will increase
our overall total listeners by at
least 60pc,” he said. Those
breakfast and drivetime
broadcasts started earlier this
month.
To exploit the full potential of
finance reporting, Mr Gould
believes he needs to strengthen
his management structure. He
cannot handle all the sales and
business management himself.
“We are playing a new game
here,” says Mr Gould, “and I find
myself being drawn back too
easily into the familiar stuff.”
He recognises it is difficult to
address the pressure for extra
research, sponsorship sales and
management when time and
money are limited.
“Spellcheck ensures my
business plans are spelled
correctly these days, but I’m still
having to make it up as I go
along.”
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