Pay to Play, or Give Us Money and We Don't Break Your Legs

I had a pleasant conversation with the ad guy from a radio station the other day.

We talked about the state of the industry (doing great, he says), and how things are going at my non-profit.

Eventually, the discussion got around to advertising, and whether we would be buying any anytime soon.

We might, I told him. We are researching possibilities for next year. We might want to buy some ads.

Just another typical conversation with an ad guy—right?

Well, it was until he left.

That’s when he suggested that future news coverage of my agency might be dependent on us buying advertising.

“It costs a lot to keep a radio station on the air,” he said.

Now, to be fair, he never actually threatened that the news department would stop running stories about my agency if I didn’t buy ads.

But he definitely left the implication hanging in the air.

At least he wasn’t as bold as an ad guy from a church publication a few years ago.

In an e-mail, he detailed how many stories his publication had carried about my organization, and how much it would have cost me to buy that space.

“I certainly do not wish to threaten you with negative consequences,” he said at the end of his e-mail—doing exactly that.

But, he went on to say, “with all relationships there are expectations and demands, giving and taking.

“Would you be pleased with our relationship if you paid for 50+ ads over five years and in return we ran only a 200-word briefly noted article?”

I replied by noting that while it was true we got valuable space, the publication didn’t have to pay the salary of my communications officer who wrote the stories, or the costs of sending her to Africa and across Canada to get the stories, or the salaries of those who assisted her in writing the reports.

It was a fair exchange, in other words—we gave them news they didn't have to pay for or write or even collect on their own.

If anything, we probably paid more for the privilege of being in his publication than they gave us in news space.

Now, I understand where the two ad guys are coming from. It’s a very challenging media environment these days.

And I am not unsympathetic to their plight. Print publications, in particular, are dying.

But pay to play by buying ads? That seems to be pushing a new edge for me, at least.

To be clear, I’m not talking about sponsored content. That’s space paid for by an advertiser that is clearly marked as having been purchased.

This is more along the lines of extortion: Pay up and we don’t break your legs.

It’s probably not the last time this will come up. As the media grows more desperate for revenue, I’m sure I will get more opportunities to pay to see my content published.

And threats if I don’t.

(Anyone else have experiences like these?)