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How do they decide how many minutes of advertising per hour to broadcast?

B

BMR

This is a general question about all commercial radio in the US. How do stations decide how many minutes of adverts to broadcast per clock hour?

My thinking goes like this. If a radio station broadcast no adverts, it would obviously make no money. If a radio station broadcast all adverts and no content, they would get no listeners (assuming people don't tune in just to hear ads!) and make no money. So how do they decide the happy medium in between?

Is there convention on this? Do they decide depending on the amount of competition in a market? So a market with only one AC station might play more adverts, but not so many that people give up and stick a CD on instead. Or do some stations have fewer ad spots so they can charge a premium for them?

Or am I completely on the wrong track here?
 
BMR said:
This is a general question about all commercial radio in the US. How do stations decide how many minutes of adverts to broadcast per clock hour?

My thinking goes like this. If a radio station broadcast no adverts, it would obviously make no money. If a radio station broadcast all adverts and no content, they would get no listeners (assuming people don't tune in just to hear ads!) and make no money. So how do they decide the happy medium in between?

Is there convention on this? Do they decide depending on the amount of competition in a market? So a market with only one AC station might play more adverts, but not so many that people give up and stick a CD on instead. Or do some stations have fewer ad spots so they can charge a premium for them?

Or am I completely on the wrong track here?
Click to expand...

There is no "premium" for spots on a low commercial load station. Ratings based ads are sold with pricing determined by the audience delivery. 18 minutes of spots an hour or 8, agencies don't pay any more or less.

And agency buys don't really care as much about formats as they do about delivery of listeners. In general, they don't "have to buy" any particular format, so if the only AC is overpriced, they just do not buy it at all.

Every programmer has an idea of where the breaking point in commercial load lies. Conventionally, it is around 12 minutes for music. Sometimes the local market economy does not allow pricing that achieves profitability at that point, so more spots are run knowing that the audience TSL will suffer.
 
I believe the answer BRM is looking for is the NAB (in their Code of Practices) set a limit many years ago of something like 18 minutes per hour. I know it's not an FCC rule (or is it?). I should know but I'm not sure - I was on the air from 1975 to 1992. I haven't thought about it until I came across this thread.
 
As an example, WDRC-FM 102.9 (Classic Rock) of Hartford is doing a "2 Minute Promise" gimmick on weekends during June and then in summer. No stop set will be longer than 2 minutes of commercials. Of course, it also means they'll be breaking more often to make up for it all. The worst offender in the Hartford/New Britain/Middletown market seems to be WHCN-FM 105.9 (Variety Hits) of Hartford. They always seem to have two long breaks an hour, with one of them usually starting close to :10 past.
 
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