When put that way, it makes perfect sense as to why commercial free hours do exist, but I am still surprised at the number of them in prime drive time slots. I would think that the times least likely to be sold out would be the middle of the day.
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Are stations shooting themselves in the foot?
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
An important thing to consider is that stations will charge more as they approach sell-out. Supply and demand, right?
So, if you take what would normally be an hour with 14 minutes of commercials in afternoon drive (3-7 pm) and make it commercial free, you've reduced the number of avails by 25%. It's easier to hit sell-out, and you're more likely to be able to charge a higher rate, based on the lower supply of available ad time.
You probably won't make back what you've given up in those increased rates, but at the same time, you're making it easier for the audience to listen longer, which improves your quarter-hour share. Do that a couple of times a day, and if your quarter-hour share goes up in the next ratings book, you may have a case for raising your spot rate across the board.
Long-term, you make the money.
Typically a commercial free hour doesn't mean the station is losing that inventory, it's just shifted to other hours, so a commercial free 4p hour may be followed by 5p and 6p hours that have more commercials than a normal hour. Usually, as long as the commercials are contained within a specific daypart (eg. 3p-7p), it doesn't matter which particular hour they air in.
Not in the cases of the stations in my market. I'm sure they will change when commercial free hours exist at some point because nothing is forever, but the Variety Hits station in my market has been doing three hours commercial free between nine and noon since at least 2012. The other stations are more recent, but none have changed since at least August 2022. This raises also another question I've had for a while now. What exactly is the problem with radio revenue? I have not noticed a decrease in the length of ad breaks. What I have noticed is two big things particularly on younger-targeted stations:
1. More varied spot lengths. When listening to an aircheck from 20 years ago, most of the spots were 60 seconds. Now, it's a mix of 30 and 60 second spots.
2. Advertisers repeated in a short amount of time, sometimes with the same spot, sometimes with a different one. Fortunately radio hasn't gotten as bad as TV can get where the same spot plays multiple times in the same break, but I have heard multiple spots from the same advertiser within the same 60 minute aircheck, something that didn't happen 20 years ago. The only reason I could see this as a problem is if a lot of bonus spots were being given out.
But you can...and I know stations that have...use the self-imposed "shortage" of avails to charge premium rates.
What market?
What do you mean by "What exactly is the problem with radio revenue?"
The amount charged per commercial is decreasing. Fewer clients are buying fewer spots. Market forces at work. You can only sell spots for what the clients will pay.
This is from August, when BIA felt the need to do a past-the-mid-point correction on its ad forecast for 2025:
BIA's 2025 Local Ad Outlook Sinks as Traditional Media Slumps - Radio Ink
BIA Advisory Services has cut its 2025 local ad forecast by $2B, signaling a tougher year ahead for traditional media as spending contracts.
radioink.com
Looking at my inventory now, less than 20% are :60s. Specifically drug companies like Pfizer with lengthy disclaimers at the end. The rest are :30.
Advertisers are buying impressions. So they would rather have more shorter spots than fewer longer spots.
But as I said earlier in this thread, younger listeners see any commercials as tune-outs. The longer the spot, the quicker the tune-out.
Rates are dropping because the number of people using radio is dropping. The money is being spread around more forms of media.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Albuquerque is hedging its bets on that. A good portion of the cluster I consult/program there is :45 ads.
im on a station that has 4 breaks an hour.. 2 minutes at 05 followed by 60 seconds of ABC news and back into music. Theres 3 other breaks ..15.. 30... 45.
The 30 will contain a state news or sports report several times a day and up to 2 minutes of sports. the 15 and 45 breaks have 3 minutes tops.
Back when i last saw tapscan numbers, our TSL was 2x our competition and 3 to 4x the rest of the market.
It must work well because now my boss is about to close on the purchase of the remaining commercial station in Laramie in the sprawling Laramie/Cheyenne market (few stations realistically cover the entire market and hell own one of them. Several stations cover Laramie and Cheyenne but Target Fort Collins)
The 30 will contain a state news or sports report several times a day and up to 2 minutes of sports. the 15 and 45 breaks have 3 minutes tops.
Back when i last saw tapscan numbers, our TSL was 2x our competition and 3 to 4x the rest of the market.
It must work well because now my boss is about to close on the purchase of the remaining commercial station in Laramie in the sprawling Laramie/Cheyenne market (few stations realistically cover the entire market and hell own one of them. Several stations cover Laramie and Cheyenne but Target Fort Collins)
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
KRKE does three breaks an hour. None are longer than three minutes; they are at :20/:35/:50. Where a fourth break would be, two songs after the TOH, there is instead a mid-sweep jingle shouting "Eighties Music Marathon!" which reinforces the stager before the jingle at the end of the :50 stopset.
No newscasts. (We figure when a listener wants news, they know how to find KKOB.) Weather at the end of the :50 stop all hours, and also at the end of the :20 stop from 6:00am to 9:00am ... which is also followed by an image liner before the jingle that simply says "more music in the morning".
We subscribe not to Nielsen but to the philosophy that our real ratings are measured by advertisers' renewing their contracts. We also get a lot of new business due to the owner being a fan of The Eighties Channel™ and the presumption that other listeners to the station they like will be good customers for them.
I don't care if our competition has better "numbers" nor do I care where we fall in the rankings, and neither does the station owner. I'm now in my fourth year of programming KRKE (remotely from L.A.!) and I now also consult all of his stations in smaller markets around the state of New Mexico, for which I get a nice retainer payment every month.
He makes money, so I make money.
No newscasts. (We figure when a listener wants news, they know how to find KKOB.) Weather at the end of the :50 stop all hours, and also at the end of the :20 stop from 6:00am to 9:00am ... which is also followed by an image liner before the jingle that simply says "more music in the morning".
We subscribe not to Nielsen but to the philosophy that our real ratings are measured by advertisers' renewing their contracts. We also get a lot of new business due to the owner being a fan of The Eighties Channel™ and the presumption that other listeners to the station they like will be good customers for them.
I don't care if our competition has better "numbers" nor do I care where we fall in the rankings, and neither does the station owner. I'm now in my fourth year of programming KRKE (remotely from L.A.!) and I now also consult all of his stations in smaller markets around the state of New Mexico, for which I get a nice retainer payment every month.
He makes money, so I make money.
That used to be a really common pattern -- I remember hearing roughly that combination of break times on multiple different stations from the late seventies into the early nineties. Then came consolidation, increased spot loads, and the current prevalent pattern of two really, really, really long breaks per hour.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
As @davideduardo and I have discussed in several threads where this comes up, outside of PPM markets there is no need to cluster all the spots into two long stopsets. In fact, in diary markets that strategy does more harm than good.
Personally, I believe that :20/:35/:50 would also still work in a PPM market, especially if the competition was doing a "bowtie" stop placement @ :15/:45.
There's one station in a diary market I listen to (KCJJ) that has 10 minute stopsets. They're at least twice an hour with different spots in each one. They also occasionally run 20 minute segments in the morning with a business advertiser as their guest.