Assistant Negotiator
Role
The Assistant Negotiator is the entry-position within the Local Broadcast Investment group. He/she assists with the day-to-day maintenance and works with the Broadcast Negotiator on negotiations, placement, and stewardship of Spot TV, Radio, and Cable schedules.
Maintenance:
- Order schedules and obtain confirmations for all stations
- Review buy specifications and request station avails as required
- Verify that confirmations match original order and in the cases of a discrepancy, address with stations
- Create and maintain contact logs. Follow-up with stations for any missing/late/revised contracts
- Obtain and review all make-good offers. Assist in negotiating acceptable make-goods by researching audience information and negotiating costs and time period with sales reps. Decide whether to accept, reject, revise, or credit and follow-up with computer input
- Review and resolve billing discrepancies along with Broadcast Negotiator. Resolutions include: credit or partial payment, researching audience and applying appropriate values, negotiating bonus spots, acceptance/rejection of deviations from order, providing direction to finance for payment, and to spot staff for timely resolutions
- Handle special projects such as competitive requests and log checks
- Maintain accurate records of buys, budgets, revisions, credits, etc.
Media Skills:
- Attend training classes by Nielsen and Arbitron
- Attend the OMD Media Foundations Training program to learn:
- Media concepts and terminology
- Media fundamentals (media math, plan development, etc.)
- Media building blocks (television, radio, internet, etc.)
- Presentation skills
- Writing skills
- Business etiquette and ethics
- Learn the key research tools in negotiating local broadcast buys
- Attend internal and external meetings and presentations
- Attend meetings with Negotiators and sales representatives
- Keep abreast of industry trends through trade press and current events
Knowledge/Expertise
- Bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university
- Interest in the principles of advertising, marketing and media
Skills/Abilities
- Analytical thinking
- Ability to work with numbers
- Ability to work as part of a team
- Ability to take direction and constructive criticism from Supervisor(s)
- Exhibit fluency with MicroSoft Office
- Comfort with agency system (DDS)
- Ability to follow-through on tasks and be detail-oriented
- Ability to step “out of the box” and come up with new ideas on how to streamline processes and procedures
- Ability to effectively and comfortably communicate and interact with clients and vendors