Primed for an Earful : As Cost of TV Infomercials Soars, Sponsors Turn to Radio

Oddball products ranging from spray-on hair to Ginsu knives have sold like hotcakes in the often murky but wildly successful world of TV infomercials. Now the marketers that brought infomercials to TV are dialing up a new medium: radio.

An onslaught of radio infomercials--slick, 30-minute ads that often sound more like talk shows or game shows--may soon bring products like the Thighmaster exercise kit to your AM dial. Spiraling TV costs have turned off a number of infomercial advertisers, while many radio stations are hungry to fill up dead air time and cash in on the $1-billion infomercial industry.

Unlike television, where infomercials are almost always 30 minutes long, radio infomercials will come in all sizes. Some stations are already airing half-hour infomercials for free, cashing in on commissions from product sales. Others are testing one-minute, direct-response ads by TV advertisers who are using radio to reach new listeners.

Because radio infomercials are so new, it’s too soon to tell what impact they will have.

“They are a still mostly unexplored area,” said Joel Winston, assistant director at the Federal Trade Commission’s division of ad practices, which monitors infomercials for deception.

While only a few infomercial marketers have begun testing radio, some of the industry giants say they will probably begin doing so later this year.

Most say the crossover to radio is difficult. Consumers listening to infomercials while whizzing along the freeway aren’t likely to pull over to order products. And the magic of TV--which shows consumers every detail of how the products work--is missing from radio.

To be successful, radio infomercials must be even more entertaining than those on television, said Jeff Knowles, co-founder and general counsel of the National Infomercial Marketing Assn. “Just providing a toll-free number that people can remember long enough to get to a telephone is tough enough.”

Nor do radio listeners think in half-hour blocks, said Gary Fries, president of the Radio Advertising Bureau. “You might get them to sit for 20 seconds until the end of the advertisement, but probably not 20 minutes until the end of the infomercial,” he said.

What’s more, “few infomercial advertisers have a clue how to advertise on the radio,” said Steve Butler, president of Inside Radio Inc., an industry newsletter.

Still, many are scrambling to figure that out.

Among them is one of the kings of infomercials: Ron Popeil, founder of Beverly Hills-based Ronco Inc. Perhaps best known for products his company has sold for years on television, such as GLH Formula Spray-on Hair and a $60 food dehydrator, Popeil says the skyrocketing cost of TV ad time has left him no alternative but to turn to radio.

“If you can’t make money on TV, you have to look to radio,” Popeil said. “It’s the only place to go to stay in the infomercial business.”

Case in point: Less than a year ago, cable channel CNBC charged Popeil $9,600 for 30 minutes of commercial time at 4 p.m. Sundays. A few months ago, it asked Popeil for $20,500 for the same slot, he said.

“At that rate, I’d lose $5,000 to $10,000 every time I ran the ad,” Popeil said. He plans to begin airing radio infomercials this year. “I should have begun doing them months ago,” he lamented.

Susan Powter, whose Stop the Insanity weight loss program has been a TV infomercial smash, is expected to star soon in her first radio infomercial. “She’s so strong from a vocal standpoint, we believe her voice would be very compelling on the radio,” said Jeff Engler, president of USA Direct, the company behind Powter’s flashy TV campaign.

Several companies have sprung up recently to act as go-betweens linking the big wheels of TV infomercials with the radio stations that want their dollars.

“Radio has missed the billion-dollar infomercial bandwagon,” said Peter Hartz, senior vice president at IDB Communications Group, a Culver City company that recently established an InfoRadio Network division to match infomercial makers with radio stations. “Now radio is suddenly being seen as the new frontier.”

But instead of paying for radio time, Hartz swings deals with stations to run the ads on commission. For example, in exchange for airing the 30-minute infomercial “Winning for Life,” which features a series of motivational tapes and a video, InfoRadio pays the radio stations $10.13 for each $59.95 order it receives.

That is a much harder deal to swing with television stations, which typically demand broadcast money up front from most infomercial makers.

Locally, several radio stations are already testing infomercials. KABC recently began airing two 30-minute infomercials at midnight Saturdays. “This is a time period when we would normally broadcast reruns of talk shows,” general manager George Green said. “We asked ourselves, is it illegal? No. Is it immoral? No. Is it deceptive? Well, we certainly hope not.” All infomercials are identified as advertisements, Green said.

Executives at radio station KIEV use a different term for the infomercials they air. “We call it block programming,” said Fred Beaton, co-owner of the Glendale station, which airs paid programming from advertisers ranging from dentists to financial advisers. “I don’t think it’s confusing,” Beaton said. “It’s a service we make available to our listeners.”

Meanwhile, Radio Direct Response, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based firm, recently began turning several very familiar, half-hour TV infomercials into 60-second radio spots that its president, Mark Lipsky, calls “radio-mercials.”

“We are the bridge between the TV infomercial industry and the radio industry,” he said.

While 30-minute TV infomercials for Thighmaster Plus feature sexy spokeswoman Suzanne Somers, the one-minute radio spot Lipsky’s firm helped create for the same product features a fast-talking, stand-up female comedian, who the firm hopes can better capture the ear of radio listeners.

The spot just began airing, so it’s too early to judge results, Lipsky said. But he has few doubts that his radio infomercials will be successful.

“The way we look at it is simple,” Lipsky said. “TV baits the hook and radio reels them in.”

Rising Infomercial Sales The radio industry, with lots of unsold air time, is trying to coax the big infomercial makers to switch some of their broadcast ad spending away from TV to radio. Here is a look at how product sales generated by TV infomercial programs have stacked up over the years, in millions of dollars.

Source: National Infomercial Marketing Assn.