Activity is starting to ramp up for Q2 business. While Q1 doesn’t give us any solid indicators of how Q2 will materialize, it provides ample data points with which to give our most accurate forecast of demand. Most of the following is common sense, but frequency sells, so getting a refresher is always a great idea.

Currently, stations should review at least three different indicators to help determine your pricing strategy for the quarter.

1. What happened in Q1? When we account for significant revenue events (i.e., Super Bowl), how did we pace against last year? How does our revenue compare historically to 2022? We can look at historical quarter-to-quarter comparisons to see what patterns might replicate themselves. Also, if our core in Q1 is coming in at a -10% once revenue events are backed out, it’s extremely unlikely Q2 will come in positive unless some major market event occurs.

2. What, if any, political demand will impact the quarter? The primary season has been very disappointing for several regions that were expecting a significant windfall. Our cardinal sin in Q2 is to price inventory to an inflated political demand number. Do your due diligence, but lean toward taking a conservative forecast for anticipated political demand. The consensus with most stations is that all hell will break loose after the two conventions.

3. Know your attrition. Knowing which clients have the potential for not being back and the amount of inventory they consume can guide you as to pricing strategy. As you know, replacing one major client’s investment just doesn’t happen overnight. If we’re looking at substantial non-returning business in Q2, we need to develop our replacement strategy today, which gives us ample time to implement.

The bottom line is that once you do the analysis with these three and any other factors you deem necessary, more likely than not stations should take a fairly aggressive stance on going after early Q2 business. Successful Q1 stations took these factors into account and maximized their inventory in terms of revenue and sell out.