Bruce Kamm, CEO of Bentley Commerce Corporation (PINKSHEETS: BLYC) (www.bentleycommerce.com) announced that Bentley has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to acquire Radio Forecast Network (www.radioforecastnetwork.com), a company founded by Larry Usner, a long tie acquaintance of Kamm’s in the barter business–both having operated trade (barter) exchange’s.

Usner’s company provides “recorded-live” weather reports to radio stations in exchange for advertising inventory it sells to clients nationwide. (The acquisition of RFN is dependent on the Parties completing due diligence and executing a Final Agreement.)

Radio Forecast Network, founded by Larry Usner in 2004, currently earns over $600,000 per month in radio spot advertising inventory on 216 radio stations in 37 states in addition to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands that it then sells to advertisers.

It receives the advertising inventory in exchange for delivering over 40,000 professionally recorded-live weather reports that air about 500,000 times each month. It has been growing at the rate of 40% per year, adding an average net gain of four to five new client stations per month.

RFN’s rapid growth is due to a unique combination of bartering its recorded-live forecast services for advertising time on the stations, and its proprietary ManageWX(TM) software. With its software, more than 80 professional announcers and meteorologists now provide client radio stations with “recorded live” weather feeds specific to their coverage areas, using their call letters, a custom open and close that can include a sponsor, and a jingle, all at 100% barter.

ManageWX(TM) announcer software, allows the 80 meteorologists and forecasters on the RFN team to see, in one screen shot, exactly how each affiliate station wants their weather presented — the open, the close, the sponsor, the length of the feed, the daypart in which it airs, and, of course, the weather data specific to that station’s coverage area.

Once recorded, it’s uploaded to RFN’s website and available for download by the station, either through RFN’s partnership with Digital Jukebox and its “Radio Spiders” software and the station’s automation system, or manually by a station staff member.

Many radio stations, which have been reducing their own staffs, have leapt at the opportunity to obtain the weather forecasts with bartered time instead of cash. The radio stations can then attract cash-paying advertisers to sponsor their local weather forecasts, which typically have resulted in RFN receiving long-term contracts.

The advertising space RFN receives airs at excellent times, between 6am and 6pm. It sells this advertising for cash (typically at a discount) or can use it to sell others’ products and services for a revenue share of sales.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Best & Brightest Barter, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.