Underwriting with NCPR -- A Mutually Beneficial Partnership

Guidelines | Rates | Sample Packages | Program Grid (.pdf)

NCPR Web Underwriting

Perhaps you've noticed the underwriter acknowledgments at the top of virtually all of our pages as you've surfed through our online content. The businesses you see are taking advantage of a great opportunity to connect with our online NCPR family.

NCPR offers a maximum of 20 web underwriting opportunities at an annual cost of $1,000 each. Underwriting acknowledgements randomly rotate throughout our web pages, offering a minimum of 5,000 page views per month for each web underwriter. The transfer of our viewer to your website is seamless. Once viewers click on your underwriter "button," they immediately enter your website. It's as simple as that!

Seasonal web underwriters:

For businesses and organizations that are seasonal in nature, web underwriting may be purchased for $100 per month. Based on availability, multiple web underwriting spots may be purchased to receive an increased percentage of the underwriting rotation. For example, 3 web underwriting spots purchased for one month would afford the business or organization a minimum of 15,000 page views per month
versus 5,000 for one spot.

For more information on how you can become one of our NCPR web underwriters, email Sandy Demarest or call 1-877-388-6277.

NCPR Broadcast Underwriting

North Country Public Radio has been broadcasting in the public interest since 1968. Thousands of listeners rely on NCPR to deliver their daily dose of regional and national news; political, environmental and educational on-air discussions and call-in programs; as well as a diverse offering of music and other entertainment programming. North Country Public Radio continues to derive the great majority of its annual revenue from private sector support. Astute business people throughout our broadcast region recognize North Country Public Radio as an uncommon, cost-effective, and lucrative underwriting investment. 

Underwriting presents an opportunity for business people to actively and publicly lend their financial support of North Country Public Radio before an audience of well-traveled, well-educated individuals, many of whom hold managerial positions and enhanced personal spending power. This is a market of individuals who think, care, and spend. No other media source reaches homes and businesses throughout our broadcast region — virtually the entire northern tier of New York State, western Vermont, and Southern Ontario and Quebec. In some Adirondack communities, North Country Public Radio is the only radio signal received.

Second, underwriters are afforded an enhanced public image — loyal NCPR listeners are like family to the station, and they greatly value and recognize the investment made by local and regional businesses in support of their public radio station.

Should you wish to discuss underwriting, please contact Sandy Demarest.

Broadcast Underwriting Guidelines

Clear guidelines make for a good message. A combination of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and North Country Public Radio (NCPR) guidelines for underwriting ensure that the message brought forth is clear, concise, sophisticated and pleasing to the ears of our listeners.

FCC underwriting guidelines dictate that all public radio stations must refrain from using underwriting language which contains:

  1. Calls to Action (words such as "call", "stop by", or phrases prompting action)
  2. References to price (i.e., actual price, "free", "on sale", etc.)
  3. Superlatives (i.e., "best", "greatest", "most reliable", etc.) or other qualitative descriptors
  4. Inducements to buy, rent, sell, or lease

The "intent" of underwriting is to publicly acknowledge our underwriters and provide a brief description of location, services, notable business anniversary or relocation information, slogans used as a standard, traditional portion of the business's marketing mix and which do not violate FCC and NCPR regulations, as well as telephone numbers and web site information. Underwriting credits must fit in a 10 second time frame. NOTE:  A maximum of two underwriter credits are scheduled in most available program breaks. Each credit spot is sold separately.

NCPR Underwriting Guidelines:

  1. Web site information may be included. As an added value, we will also provide a direct link from our Current Underwriters list to the web pages of our underwriters.
  2. Other than accepted slogans, words such as "you," "your," "our," and "we" are not permitted. It suggests a personal statement on the part of the station and is therefore not acceptable.
  3. NCPR will comply, without exception, with all FCC underwriting guidelines; non-compliance subjects the station to severe penalties.

Broadcast Underwriting Rates

Compare North Country Public Radio underwriting rates to those of any other medium! NCPR rates are offered at two levels: prime time and standard time.

Prime time rates are $22.00 per credit supporting programs aired during times when listenership tends to be at its highest. Prime time programs include: Morning Edition, Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and A Prairie Home Companion, regional and national news, All Things Considered, and many more.

View our complete schedule of prime and standard programming (PDF document)

Standard time rates are $14.00 per credit supporting mid-day and evening programs enjoyed by our listeners. Standard time programs include:  classical music, On Point, Mountain Stage, The Thistle & Shamrock, and many other popular programs.

Credits are defined as a 10-second underwriter message conforming to the underwriter guidelines listed above.

Each underwriting partnership is unique, with credits structured to suit the needs of that particular business.  Credits may run several times a day, once a day, five days a week, once a week, or concentrated seasonally.  All credits are subject to availability.

Flexible Payment Schedules
 Convenient payment schedules can be arranged on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis.

Discounted Annual Packages
Underwriting partnerships which encompass a 12-month run are offered at a discounted rate. The underwriter pays for the first 50 weeks, while receiving the remaining two weeks free of charge.

Sample Underwriting Packages

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package A $12,600 364 Prime In Full
    364 Standard $3,150.00/quarter
        $1,050.00/month
Package A represents an underwriting profile containing seven prime and seven standard credits per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package B $9,000 260 Prime In Full
    260 Standard $2,250.00/quarter
        $750.00/month
Package B represents an underwriting profile containing five prime and five standard credits per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package C $6,900 260 Prime In Full
    104 Standard $1,725.00/quarter
        $575.00/month
Package C represents an underwriting profile containing five prime and two standard credits per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package D $4,700 156 Prime In Full
    104 Standard $1,175.00/quarter
        $391.66/month
Package D represents an underwriting profile containing three prime and two standard credits per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package E $2,200 104 Prime In Full
        $550.00/quarter
        $183.33/month
Package E represents an underwriting profile containing two prime credits per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package F $1,100 52 Prime In Full
        $275.00/quarter
        $91.66/month
Package F represents an underwriting profile containing one prime credit per week.

Name of Plan Cost Number of Credits Credit Type Payment Options
Package G $700 52 Standard In Full
        $175.00/quarter
        $58.33/month
Package G represents an underwriting profile containing one standard credit per week.
Seasonal rates are also available.

Should you wish to discuss underwriting, please contact Sandy Demarest.
Stephen Maselli and the crew from Old Adirondack Authentic in Essex, NY..

Dear NCPR--

Now that you have installed the new transmitter in Bristol Vermont the NCPR community is available to us Essex NY residents. And a great community it is.

What makes it very valuable is that it provides a sense of community across this vast region of the Adirondack Park. Even though the physical distances are large, NCPR knits the little hamlets together with its excellent local news and events programming. When you put all of the little communities together you realize we actually have a relatively large cultural community. So we really have the advantage of living in a park and living in a significant cultural community.

This region needs NCPR more than ever in that most other stations come from afar and from conglomerate outlets that have no relationship with the Adirondack Park.

Thank you NCPR for being there and for being our companion.

Stephen Maselli

Rosalyn "Roz" and John Dragun of Windfall Bar & Grill in Cranberry Lake.

When deciding on how to spend an annual advertising budget, there are a few questions you must ask yourself: Who are my current customers? Where will my future customers come from? What media do these customers tune in to? NCPR is the only local radio station encompassing all of the North Country. Their programming covers a wide range of local and national news and cultural interests, including local history, local fiddlers, storytellers, and authors. Events throughout the North Country are highlighted on NCPR's community calendar, both on air and online. For an information source online, they have the most user friendly, clean and updated webpage I have ever seen.

NCPR listeners are informed, often times educated, civic minded, and carry a strong sense of community. If you are looking for a consumer interested in building a relationship with your service or product, then you have found them in the North Country listener.

You will hear it over and over again; listeners/supporters of public radio will, in turn, support the underwriters of public radio. I can firmly attest to that fact, as my husband and I have been underwriters of public radio since 1996. It is so much more than a venue for media marketing. It is a community of like minded, educated consumers.

We often see new faces in our dining room, people pleased to tell us that they drove here from Keene, Jay, Lake Placid, Wells, Potsdam, Canton, and Watertown because they heard of us on North Country Public Radio. We are in an isolated, wild part of the Adirondack Park. Our winters often times begin in November, and end in April; that's 6 months of cold and snow.....NCPR is our life line; it's a familiar friendly voice that knows our community, our history, our present day circumstances in this economy, and this ties us to our neighbors.

If you are considering doing more with your advertising budget than just bringing people in your door, consider what else it means to be part of North Country Public Radio. It means you have an extended family throughout the listening area; one that will help your financial bottom line and enrich your life.

I opened my business, Borealis Color, in the summer of 2007. From the beginning, I have been an underwriter on NCPR, and it has proven to be one of the most effective forms of promotion I have found for my business.

I advertise aggressively, in a wide range of outlets. Besides being an underwriter of NCPR, I advertise on local commercial radio stations and in numerous print media. My contract with NCPR grants me 5 10-second spots a week, and costs about $358 a month -- a bargain in light of the fact that consistent customer feedback indicates to me that the NCPR spots generate more visits to my store, and from a wider geographic range, than any other form of marketing. I think NCPR listeners take an active approach to this region. My perception has been that they truly appreciate & wish to encourage the businesses whose underwriting support helps provide the programs they enjoy. I have had customers from all over the Adirondacks, from The St. Lawrence Valley, from Vermont, from Canada, and from the western and southern parts of out North Country tell me that they purposely visited my store because of hearing my NCPR spots. On more than one occasions, my phone has rung moments after an NCPR announcer read the number.

As a new business,I have been utilizing a broad range of advertising outlets because I feel the need to spread my name wide. However, I will soon be reducing my expenditure by focusing on those outlets which seem to be the most effective. NCPR will be at the top of my list. In fact, it would be absolutely the last thing I would cut, because it has proven to be the single most potent, cost-effective form of advertising available.

Susan Olsen
Borealis Color
Saranac Lake, New York