I had Kiss 96.5 on for a while. Tuned in when they were playing commercials. I don't know how many they began with, but I counted at least 20 from the time that I tuned in. I guess that they figure that people will dial away during commercials so they might as well dump a bunch of them in one shot.
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Commercials Commercial Commercials
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You realize they have no other source of income, right? Just commercials. That's it. They pay for everything with the money they get from commercials. Without them, there would be no station.
They also play 12-13 songs an hour. I counted them. That's about as many as they've ever played.
They also play 12-13 songs an hour. I counted them. That's about as many as they've ever played.
How do they keep their advertiser base happy with long commercial stop-sets? I'm thinking that the first 2 to 4 commercials may have a significant audience, the others not so much.
We all know that station revenue comes from commercials. We also know that there are about a million sources for music without such long stop sets. Yes, some cost a few cents to join. I also know that radio is the simple source in that it's easy for the consumer to use. Even so, I'd have to say that unless radio finds something instead of, or to compliment its music to make it exciting and desirable, there is little reason to love it. I can hear the same music anywhere. I don't know if it's dynamic personalities, or some wonderful new format of the future, but current commercial radio is worth about the cost of what you spend to hear it. We mostly get news, weather and other information from other sources. Even the small market, big dollar school closings are gone to social media. I find it strange that the only justification seems to be "well radio needs the money". It needs listeners too to hear and respond to the advertising. I have found no reason to tune in radio in recent years, except the occasional dialing around to see who is still employed, what the formats are. I've had few elements draw my attention to the point I wanted to stay with the station or tune back in. Having said all that, I have to admit that I tune around to hear the liners and commercials, just out of curiosity, but once I've sampled the current talent, I go away from local radio again for a while. When something exciting happens, I will tune back in. It probably won't be soon though.
We've discussed this multiple times. Advertisers don't just buy one spot. They may be the 4th in a cluster once, and 1st in a cluster thee next time. They see the results and they're happy. They get a detailed printout of where all of their spots air. They're the ones who prefer one or two breaks vs. spots after every song. They know the research, they know the results, and they know what they're buying. They're not the ones complaining.
OK. Come up with a better alternative for radio to make money and we'll all stop running ads. Nobody in radio likes commercials.
People just like to complain. They don't like commercials. So we say go to public radio. Then they say we don't like the begging for money. So go to Sirius. They don't like the monthly bill. Go to streaming. The costs keep going up. People just want music for free.
People also don't like paywalls:
Survey Finds Paywalls Still A Turnoff For Many Americans.
Podcasters’ debate over whether to put content behind a paywall continues, as many see it as a viable revenue alternative to advertising. Recent reports suggest the New York Times is
It's not about an alternative to the commercials radio needs to stay in business. It's about giving people reason to listen through the long sets of boring spots. At present the offer little. People are leaving radio for other entertainment. Radio responds by crying poverty, cheapening the product and selling a zillion spots to pay the electric bill. My point is that if they created a product people want and enjoyed, they would not be as interested in seeking out alternatives and If the commercials were at least partially entertaining they might even listen through some of them.OK. Come up with a better alternative for radio to make money and we'll all stop running ads. Nobody in radio likes commercials.
People just like to complain. They don't like commercials. So we say go to public radio. Then they say we don't like the begging for money. So go to Sirius. They don't like the monthly bill. Go to streaming. The costs keep going up. People just want music for free.
People also don't like paywalls:
Survey Finds Paywalls Still A Turnoff For Many Americans.
Podcasters’ debate over whether to put content behind a paywall continues, as many see it as a viable revenue alternative to advertising. Recent reports suggest the New York Times iswww.insideradio.com
That's why we run the commercials. We need the money to stay in business. The listeners don't pay.
And they complain about that too. They started leaving 30 years go, not because of commercials. People want what they want, and they want it for free.
Radio offers something unique: It's cheap and easy. You don't need a user name or password. No credit card, no email address. It's always there. You don't have to program it with your likes or dislikes. But for that service, we run commercials. Just like other ad-driven media. They're not always long. Sometimes we do ad-free hours. But like everything in this world, we charge for what we do. Don't like it? Fine. We can't please everyone.
We don't create the commercials. We sell the time, and the advertisers are responsible for their ads. If they're bad ads, that's their problem. Our job is what happens after the ads end.
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It's actually your problem if it contributes to a decline of listenership. And it is the client's problem if it doesn't leave a positive impression I can't buy the product they pitch at the end of the spot is I am bored and mentally tuned out half way through. I understand the problems. I m just suggesting that making excuses will keep the status quo and fewer listeners will be here to be bored by the same old stuff next book.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Some stations manage to create good spots for their local advertisers (in those cases, contrary to what BigA said, the client is not responsible for producing their spots). But we cannot control the presentation when an agency buys the time and provides the commercial, pre-produced.
I presume the station in question is WAKS. Cleveland is market #36, and the station is owned by iHeart as part of a cluster that includes the top-rated Classic Rock, AOR, News/Talk, Adult Hits, and Country stations. So I would venture to guess that 90%+ of their ad revenue comes from agency buys ... and nearly all of that as combo buys for multiple stations in the cluster.
So in this case you're essentially preaching to a brick wall, because the station has little (if any) control over the production values of those ads, and -- as I know you've heard plenty of times, because you've been here on RD for close to five years -- lower ad revenue almost always leads to cuts in the quality of the programming ... and in the most dire conditions, format flips.
A friend of mine calls this TANSTAAFL (pronounced "tan-STAH-full"): There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. What you are experiencing is the consequence of the lunch not including a bill at the end of your meal.
How do you propose to fix the problem/idea of reducing commercial load and increasing revenue? Cite specific, current day ideas and examples...
If listeners know there is going to be a 5 minute block of commercials, don't you think a lot of them would switch the station as soon as the first commercial comes on? They would not likely do that if they knew there would only be a couple commercials.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
They might try, but there is a tendency for all stations in a market to schedule their stopsets at around the same times to discourage such "dial-switching". It doesn't take more than a couple instances of switching to no avail before a listener stops trying that tactic.
When i was in NW PA, we had a septic service advertiser on WDDH and WKBI...... and they had a commercial done by someone locally that was a signing commercial talking about a poopatorium to the tune of the YMCA.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Hope they remembered to license the song for that purpose (public performance). The station's ASCAP/BMI license wouldn't cover the advertiser.
Remember that Victor Willis -- who owns the copyright on that song -- sued Trump four years ago for using it in a video?
But using business owners to voice (the whole spot or just a cameo) their ads does catch listeners' attention. Don Davis at KRKE does it on a huge percentage of his local ads ... it's part of a client-focused sales philosophy which he has used successfully for a couple of decades.
I'm not in radio sales but maybe someone here can tell us, how much revenue does a typical P.I. spot bring in? I don't mean the outlier like in the top 5 percent of P,I. spots, but on average? And how many low-value, dollar-a-holler (or less), network and free bonus spots typically reside in these endless breaks?
I could be wrong but it feels like in general, commercial radio is willing to give airtime to virtually anything that brings in a penny at the cost of lowering the entertainment value of the on-air product. Perhaps I'm cynical to think many of these broadcasting companies are laser-focused on short term gains no matter how small, without much concern for how it affects the listening experience. Do they underprice the value of their airtime attracting cheap, bottom feeding advertisers while repelling listeners in the long term?
That's really up to the listeners. We don't force them to listen. They do so willingly.
The research says listeners who are prone to switch will do so the minute they hear the first spot. So the length of the break doesn't matter. Keep in mind listeners to talk stations get more commercials than listeners to music stations. But they only complain about music stations. We do research and so do the advertisers. Some of them subscribe to Nielsen, where they can see minute by minute breakdowns of when listeners switch. They know what you do. Nielsen isn't for us, it's for the advertisers.
Hyrum doesn't understand that in large markets 90% or more of the commercials sold are placed by agencies. Agencies provide the produced commercials. The station has no say. Secondly, the agencies control the price paid for commercials. They dictate a cost per thousand they pay. You meet that cost per thousand or you don't get the buy.
And if people are leaving radio in droves, why all the commercials? The answer is radio produces results for that commercial running. If the results weren't there, they would not buy again. Thus, no results, no commercials. So just what you complain about is the very success of radio and proves your statements as incorrect.
And if people are leaving radio in droves, why all the commercials? The answer is radio produces results for that commercial running. If the results weren't there, they would not buy again. Thus, no results, no commercials. So just what you complain about is the very success of radio and proves your statements as incorrect.
We sell the time. Once we sell it, the time belongs to the advertisers. They can do with it what they want. If they make boring spots, they hurt their business. We can show them the audience before their spot ran, and what happened during their spot. If they want to reach more people, it's up to them. Our job is to give them a big audience, and then get that audience back after the spots. The rest is up to them.
Once again, our contract is with the advertisers. Their spots have to run under the terms of their contract. We don't have to play music, but we do have to run the spots as scheduled in the contract.
That doesn't answer any of the questions I posed which had nothing to do with the creativity of spots, or lack thereof.
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