Demographics

• Major cities/towns included Amarillo (Potter County), Pampa (Gray County), Borger (Hutchinson County), Dumas (Moore County), Canyon (Randall County) and Perryton (Ochiltree County). The combined population of these six cities/towns is just over 240,000.
• The campaign covered 26 counties in the Panhandle region of Texas. These counties included Armstrong, Briscoe, Carson, Castro, Childress, Collingsworth, Deaf Smith, Dallam, Donley, Gray, Hall, Hansford, Harley, Hemphill, Hutchinson, Lipscomb, Moore, Ochiltree, Oldham, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Roberts, Sherman, Swisher and Wheeler. The combined population of these counties is over 403,000.
• The radio rating service, Arbitron, estimates that 195,300 people, aged 12 and older (“12+ population”) are in the Amarillo market. Pampa and Perryton are considered separate markets.

Advertising logistics

• Advertising ran between Oct. 5 and Nov. 2.
• Themes included items featured in East Texas, plus a heavy emphasis on production tax con-tributions to local governments and school districts, good-paying jobs created by the industry, and the fact that independents do the vast bulk of drilling and producing in Texas.
• Ads ran in three newspapers:
  • Amarillo Globe News (Sundays and Wednesdays)
  • The Pampa News (Sundays and Wednesdays)
  • The Perryton Herald (Thursdays)
• Circulation totals for these newspapers are:
  • Amarillo Globe News, 50,065 daily and 62,378 on Sundays
  • The Pampa News, 4,700 daily and 5,200 on Sundays
  • The Perryton Herald, approx. 3,500
• Ads ran on seven radio stations:
  • Four in Amarillo—KGNC-FM (Country); KGNC-AM (News/Talk); KMXJ-FM (Adult Contemporary); and KPRF-FM (Adult Hits/Rock of the 60s, 70s and 80s)
  • Two in Pampa—KGRO-AM (Adult Contemporary) and KMOX-FM (Country)
  • One in Perryton—KXDJ-FM (Country)
• Amarillo, by itself, is the 194th largest radio market tracked by Arbitron nationwide. There are 18 radio stations in the Amarillo market. Our ads ran on the 1st-ranked (KGNC-FM), 5th-ranked (KGNC-AM), 6th-ranked (KMXJ-FM) and 9th-ranked (KPRF-FM) stations. As in East Texas, these stations were chosen on the basis of their programming formats and ratings.

Results

• A pre-advertising survey was conducted through the auspices of Gap Broadcasting affiliates KMXJ-FM and KPRF-FM. The results showed similar public attitude percentages to those experienced in the East Texas market. In particular, improvement occurred on the following topics:
  • The industry’s concern for the environment and related matters
  • Whether people believe that the industry’s image is better than 5 years ago
  • The largest polluter offshore is shipping vessels, not production platforms