Commercials Commercial Commercials

[TheBigA]

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.

The client can work with the station, but the client approves everything, down to the way the announcer pronounces words. I've seen sessions where a client will pound the announcer to read the same bad copy over and over. When the production person gently suggests a different word, the client ignored him. The client is responsible for the content. It's their time, and their product. Production services are available sometimes. Most of the time, we get agency spots, produced outside the station.

That doesn't answer any of the questions I posed which had nothing to do with the creativity of spots, or lack thereof.

See above. Are we 'willing to give airtime to anyone?' The law says we have to accept all advertising that fits our guidelines. I have a friend in Chicago who requires clients to submit ad copy that his hosts read. No jingles or production. Just host reads. Those are his rules. But other than that, money is money.

It really depends on the format. There are a lot of major advertisers who say in their contracts that their spots can't air in controversial talk shows or in music formats with controversial lyrics. That's their choice. So that leaves the station stuck with a certain type of advertiser.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

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.

we didnt use the song.... it was a "custom" song that a local musician wrote to the tune of, but not exactly like the YMCA .. the lyrics were all about the local company

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

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?

Theyre filling unsold airtime, plain and simple

 

[K.M. Richards]

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?

Your second paragraph has already been addressed, so I'll give you quick answers to these two questions in your first.

Per Inquiry (or, using the preferred term these days, "Direct Response") ads are something of a crap shoot. You have to be running the ad at the exact time that a listener who would be interested in the product is tuned in and who will call the toll-free number right then and there. Listeners are not likely to write down the number to call later, and Google™ searching later won't give you the station-specific number to call.

I have had spots that ran for months with few responses and then suddenly had more calls in one month than all of those previous months.

Part of the secret is thinking like a listener in deciding which DR spots to run. Things like budget-rate internet and wireless can run all year long, as can the spots to reduce past due IRS tax liabilities. Right now (we started in April and will continue through Labor Day) we have four spots rotating -- from different advertisers -- for travel-related services ... one is a discount cruise travel agency, another brokers low cost airfares, a third does the same but for hotel reservations, and the fourth is a U.S.-based resort chain that offers low rates during midweek periods. Those all do well right now during vacation months. Spots that promote Medicare Advantage work well if a significant percentage of the audience is Boomers, but we also run ACA-focused health insurance spots during the annual enrollment period as well as one for a broker of plans for people who don't have coverage through work but have too high an income to qualify for ACA.

As for lower priced or bonus spots, most stations shove those into lesser dayparts, like 7pm to midnight. Network spots tend to come with specific daypart requirements, usually tied to the time the show they are in airing live.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Theyre filling unsold airtime, plain and simple

If the airtime is unsold, how much are they typically bringing in with such deep discount clutter? Pennies? Why not fill it with entertainment (like music) instead? Maybe audience retention, or (gasp) even audience building, is worth more than the insignificant revenue those garbage filler spots bring in.

 

[TheBigA]

This is an example of the instructions we usually get from major national advertisers:

Cannot air in or adjacent to controversial programming.
Please maintain max separation between commercial
airings and between competitive advertisers or
products. Please do not air spots after 8PM.

This is directly from the contract. So if your station runs controversial programming, such as conservative talk or rap music, they miss out on major advertisers such as home improvement centers, insurance, or car repair. As a result, they end up with per inquiry spots, and get paid a percentage, based on the response the ads attract.

Can someone in programming just decide not to run spots? No. That's an ownership decision. The advertiser has a contract, and the spots must run according to the terms of the contract.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

If the airtime is unsold, how much are they typically bringing in with such deep discount clutter? Pennies? Why not fill it with entertainment (like music) instead? Maybe audience retention, or (gasp) even audience building, is worth more than the insignificant revenue those garbage filler spots bring in.

it all depends.. PI/Direct response can bring $10 to $50 per response they get

 

[TheBigA]

BTW the OP in this thread said he counted 20 spots. I looked at the station's 'Just Played' and didn't see any hour where there was a 10-20 minute gap between songs. The OP post was after 7PM, a time when stations usually don't run a lot of ads. He may have been referring to something that happened earlier. He also didn't say if it only happened once, or in every hour. We had a similar post in the Columbus board and we determined it happened once, perhaps as a make-good for spots that didn't run earlier.

 

[K.M. Richards]

it all depends.. PI/Direct response can bring $10 to $50 per response they get

Indeed they can, Paul. The "get out from under your IRS debt" spot brings in $100 per response all by itself.

But again, as I said, the stars have to align just right for the target listener to be there when it airs.

 

[TheBigA]

Quite often, the kinds of advertisers that do PI spots prefer the long form infomercials, where they have more time to sell their product,

 

[Hyrum]

How do you propose to fix the problem/idea of reducing commercial load and increasing revenue? Cite specific, current day ideas and examples...

I don't. I'm busy working on the cure for cancer. I merely suggest that the product being offered today is attracting fewer people each year. I suggest that the people who have money invested in the industry had better find the new and better mousetrap and soon. The stuff they are sending out into the airwaves now isn't going to sustain them into the future. That's all. I simply argue that you can't tell people "well they have to have all those commercials to make money" We all know that. The issue is to give me a reason to listen to all those spots. Thus far few are doing that. It's not up to me to solve the problem. It's up to the radio station if they want me and you and the other guy down the street to be a consumer into the future. I don't need them. I merely like the convenience of touching a button on the dashboard. Once every other choice is programmed into the dashboard to make choices simple, I don't think I'd have a traditional commercial station on the first, second, or 32nd present.

 

[TheBigA]

The issue is to give me a reason to listen to all those spots.

That's the job of the advertiser. They know what they're buying. They spend a lot of money to get your attention.

The radio companies can see the numbers. That's why they're redirecting resources to other things, such as podcasts or streaming. There may come a day when the content you want is only available behind a paywall.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Indeed they can, Paul. The "get out from under your IRS debt" spot brings in $100 per response all by itself.

But again, as I said, the stars have to align just right for the target listener to be there when it airs.

Have you done the math to calculate the number of times that spot had to air in total to bring in $100. That would tell you how much it brings in per occasion, on average, putting a price on the airtime they're getting. And I'll bet they are longwinded :60's because...

Quite often, the kinds of advertisers that do PI spots prefer the long form infomercials, where they have more time to sell their product,

Of course. Because they don't pay for the length, only the response. So they can take up a lot of time based on that business model.

 

[TheBigA]

Of course. Because they don't pay for the length, only the response. So they can take up a lot of time based on that business model.

It depends. We have a longform rate, so it's likely they pay extra for that time. Some of the financial and medical shows pay for the time.

 

[Hyrum]

That's the job of the advertiser. They know what they're buying. They spend a lot of money to get your attention.

The radio companies can see the numbers. That's why they're redirecting resources to other things, such as podcasts or streaming. There may come a day when the content you want is only available behind a paywall.

So you agree with me that radio is failing if they need to be branching out to the other content you describe. It's not the job of the advertiser to keep me listening through the stop set. It is the job of the station to give me a reason to listen through the set. If I know I'll be entertained after the commercials I may hang around. If not, I'm gone. Someone a ways back mentioned that all stations run stop sets at the same time. I often wondered what would happen if one station counter programmed them to have music or entertainment elements during their stop sets. It might be fun to find out. Imagine throwing the entire radio clock out of balance.

 

[davideduardo]

The client can work with the station, but the client approves everything, down to the way the announcer pronounces words. I've seen sessions where a client will pound the announcer to read the same bad copy over and over.

That may be true with some high-pressure local direct accounts (insert “car dealers” here) but usually… and in my experience from Lake City, FL (where?) to New York… very few clients go to the station or do anything but approve or revise the copy and, maybe, want to hear the final recorded spot.

There will always be some local accounts that want to voice their own spots: “Hi. I’m Bill from Bill Smith Ford and I want to tell you….” But those have existed for decades.

When the production person gently suggests a different word, the client ignored him. The client is responsible for the content. It's their time, and their product. Production services are available sometimes. Most of the time, we get agency spots, produced outside the station.

Production is available in every station I have worked with, in a dozen states and nearly 20 countries. So is copywriting.

Except in the largest markets, most accounts are local direct. And even with agencies, local agencies often just provided copy for each station to produce.

See above. Are we 'willing to give airtime to anyone?' The law says we have to accept all advertising that fits our guidelines. I have a friend in Chicago who requires clients to submit ad copy that his hosts read. No jingles or production. Just host reads. Those are his rules. But other than that, money is money.

And stations can have their own content rules, such as “no beer and wine” as long as they apply this to everyone.

It really depends on the format. There are a lot of major advertisers who say in their contracts that their spots can't air in controversial talk shows or in music formats with controversial lyrics. That's their choice. So that leaves the station stuck with a certain type of advertiser.

Very true. There are plenty of advertisers that avoid even talk based morning shows… back when Stern was on in LA most accounts were local direct or local agency ones. Major accounts did not buy, so we got lots of local car dealers and bail bondsmen….

 

[thenetwork]

Some of the things that make long commercial breaks un-listenable:

1) LIVE READS: If live reads are done, many of the talents that do them nowadays read them like liner cards -- no emotion, same script every time. Might as well have the jock just record the spot once and no one would know the difference. Listening to airchecks from 30+ years ago, jocks could have a little fun and be somewhat creative with reading live spots -- no live read was ever the same.

2) SEGUES: Going back to the older days of radio, some of the sponsors that would be first in a break would start their commercials with several seconds of an instrumental or jingle before the script began. This allowed the jocks to "walk-up" to the ad making it sound like it was another song intro, which didn't give the listeners as much of chance to switch off the commercial in time.

3) CONTENT: Advertisers keep pushing for more content in their commercials -- pushing 90 seconds into a 60 second spot -- resulting in those disclaimers that are digitally sped up so the legalese is there, but hell if you knew what they said.

Also, when is the last time you heard a commercial that stuck out in a GOOD way? A commercial with a memorable jingle or catchphrase that isn't overused by every other advertiser? Or a commercial that was entertaining and funny that still gets the message across?

Instead we are treated with 90secondsofcopythataredigitallysqueezedintoa30secondspot, or a commercial that spends half the time repeating their 800 number 3 or 4 times in a row, or a jock that sounds like they want to go home (if they are not already home voice-tracking their show).

Make the long stop-set, or have more shorter breaks worth listening to and people won't tune out as much and may actually remember more of those multiple sponsors in each break -- isn't that what advertising is all about?

 

[TheBigA]

So you agree with me that radio is failing if they need to be branching out to the other content you describe.

No I don’t agree. You can’t generalize about 16000 radio stations. Some are diversifying their product line because that’s what the audience wants. We have millions of satisfied listeners and advertisers.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

So you agree with me that radio is failing if they need to be branching out to the other content you describe. It's not the job of the advertiser to keep me listening through the stop set. It is the job of the station to give me a reason to listen through the set. If I know I'll be entertained after the commercials I may hang around. If not, I'm gone. Someone a ways back mentioned that all stations run stop sets at the same time. I often wondered what would happen if one station counter programmed them to have music or entertainment elements during their stop sets. It might be fun to find out. Imagine throwing the entire radio clock out of balance.

Theyre going where the listeners are.. radio isnt just am or fm.. its audio and content delivery. give your listeners what they want where they want it or someone else will and the listeners dont come back to you

 

[K.M. Richards]

Quite often, the kinds of advertisers that do PI spots prefer the long form infomercials, where they have more time to sell their product,

Some of them do, yes. One of the DR agencies I work with has a client running a "get out of your timeshare" spot but also has a half-hour infomercial available. But none of their other clients (about three dozen) do long form.

And a lot of services or products marketed via DR do not lend themselves well to a 30-minute format.