eBay jumped into the radio pool and made a big splash this week.
The online auction company is challenging Google, the nationally recognized name brand in this business space so far. eBay said it will begin auctioning ad time on 2,300 stations. It already has such a system to sell cable ads.
eBay is partnering with Bid4Spots to create a radio presence in its eBay Media Marketplace.
According to the Reuters story carried via CNN, the eBay cable auction push has met with some resistance from cable operators who fear the setup could hurt advertising rates.
But the company sought to differentiate its approach to those market niches.
“While the previously launched Media Marketplace for cable TV is geared towards major national advertisers to make planned media buys, the Media Marketplace for Radio is designed for advertisers with the flexibility to make last-minute buys,” it said in a statement. “This flexibility enables stations to be extremely aggressive in their pricing.”
