Coding Commercials

[finallyescaped]

Do PDs still code commercials so that highly produced or entertaining spots air first in stopset? Visiting Phoenix and it seems many stations do it here, but in other markets I visit, I don't hear the same thing.

How do you code commercials? Or do you?

 

[Prais]

Some stations do this;
Promos first
2 Largest annual contracts
3 shorter runs
4 trades

 

[slarson]

We use an alphabetical system for rating commercial content, imaging and promos
"A" is used for imaging/promos
"B" commercials that are high quality fully produced
"C" for dry read commerical content (think Marketing Architecture type spots)
"D" is used for long form programming or really really poor spots that unfortunately can't be reproduced by our staff and
"POL" is used to identify all political spots so that they can be separated for content

Hope that helps you
Larson

 

[GeneSavage]

Interesting!

The code we used was a countdown 5 to 1 system:

5 -- Full sing jingle
4 -- Doughnut
3 -- Music bed
2 -- sound effects
1 -- Dry read

The idea being, the closer to a song the commercial was, the less likely people were to leave. If you could get them to a dry voice spot, you'd likely held them through most of the stopset.

One station I worked at required 60s first, then 30s to give the impression to listeners the stopset was "speeding up" and would be over soon, while another required 30s first, then 60s in order to try to get as many in as possible before people switched the dial.

Very successful stations here have used these techniques, but there's no hard evidence to indicate the way their stopsets were stacked had anything to do with their success.

Hope this helps!

 

[hornet61]

Indy Station
1. most recent check that cleared.
2. recent check received not cleared
3. sales person just walked in with check in hand....
4. DJ at Burger King..Let me have the #1 combo and I'll plug you on the air.