Saperstein was told it was too expensive to buy cars and send them out in search of traffic problems. We'll use my cars, and you give me commercial time for my dealerships. The station owner agreed, but Saperstein, a consummate salesman, never ended up using the ads for his own dealerships. Today, Metro provides traffic, weather, news, and sports reports to about 1,700 radio stations and 150 TV stations in 80 U.S. markets. Shadow, meanwhile, provides reports to about 400 stations, including a handful of TV outlets, in 16 U.S. markets.
Stations give the companies airtime in exchange for their updates.
Metro and Shadow sell that airtime to advertisers, who thus gain access in one fell swoop to multiple stations in a single market. Kelly Barton, a Metro spokeswoman, says the company would work for a single station in a market, but only with the intent of eventually growing into other stations in the same area. Metro's Saperstein takes credit for creating the ten-second radio commercial, which is read live by the reporter providing the traffic, weather, or news update. The savings to stations are clear. Only by serving a network does it become economically viable.