So far, it has been smooth sailing as Granite Broadcasting move its
eight stations from the Columbine traffic system to VCI Stars II+.
Marcy Timpone, Granite vice president of operational finance, offers
this advice based on the experience: “It's important to involve people from
the stations who will use the system every day. Then we go to VCI and tell them
what sorts of things are important and what challenges we'll need to
address.” Three stations have already made the switch.
Granite is using the VCI switch to coordinate stations' account
numbers and codes, so they use the same numbers and codes for client spots and
use the same names for similar advertisers. By limiting the categories and
making the definitions more consistent, Timpone says, “now we can do business
analysis at the corporate level” more easily by using the same language.
“Also,” she adds, “the new system interfaces with a product called
SelfDesk that gives updates and analysis, so salespeople can see what's for
sale. It's more accurate than our Columbine system.”
