Love is On the Air

Anthony Wayne    Dating     online dating, radio stations

Philadelphia — We use the internet for a lot of things…paying bills, reading the news, watching videos, and keeping in touch with old friends from high school.  We are also increasingly using it for dating and finding our soul mates.

Love through the radio

In fact, 17% of all marriages that occurred last year were between people that first met at an online dating site.  Online dating is an industry that is worth $1.049 billion annually in the USA and 40 million Americans participate in it!

So, what does this have to do with radio stations?  Opportunity!

MatchLink is a singles dating network that served the radio industry for many years.  The Evanston, Illinois company Spark Network Services provided an IVR-based dating service to radio stations.  Radio listeners called a phone number and paid to interact with other singles through a sophisticated voice mail system.  Payment was made through credit card or a 900 number.  Some stations were earning a half million dollars per year with the service.

In 2005, Spark Network Services, a division of CBS Radio, was sold to Advanced Telecom Services which had been supplying dating services to newspapers, including the New York Times, for over a dozen years. 

“The IVR dating system was in decline for several years and it was clearly a legacy product,” said Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services.  “So, we began moving the Spark customer base to an online dating solution.”

Today, the MatchLink.com online dating solution is used by over 250 radio station affiliates.  The company provides an online dating site that is customized to the look and feel of the radio station, but with the power of the largest singles database in the USA from Match.com.

“It’s a great way for a radio station to build community and it’s a valuable new source of NTR,” added Bentz.

Valuable indeed.  The average online dating site user invests $239 per year.  MatchLink pays its affiliates 40% of the gross sales made on the online dating service for the lifetime of the customer.  The bulk of the revenue goes to Match.com and Spark takes a small share for its providing the online dating site design and operation.  It also provides banner ads for the radio station web site, commercials for various radio station formats, and on-air liners for the jocks.

“As far as revenue goes, there is a real cumulative effect for the service for the radio station,” said Bentz.  “Users will start going steady and drop out of the online dating pool for a while, but then they breakup three months later and are back using the service again.”

The average age for an online dating user is a surprisingly older than expected 48-years-old.  Most online dating users are divorced or separated and online dating best suits their busy lifestyle.  At age 26, women have twice as many male users contacting them, but at age 48, men have twice as many women contacting them.

The service is compatible for all formats, although Bentz indicated that the company has had its best success with country formats.

“Country listeners want to date other country listeners, but a CHR listener could date a classic rock listener.”

I guess that’s what compatibility is all about.

Click here to see a sample radio station online dating site.  To get in touch with MatchLink, you can contact Bentz at sales@advancedtele.com or call him at 610-688-6000.

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