• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Commercials

M

mammaknowsbest

Guest
MOVIN goes with the fewest commercials per hour in Seattle Radio. Sandusky makes the bold move of just eight minutes an hour, two breaks of four minutes. KBKS plays 15-20 minutes of commercials an hour. This move is stronger than Clear Channel, now running almost ten minutes an hour. KISS
will not be able to compete, KUBE will have to react. It takes guts to put on a
station and hold down commercials loads under heavy demand. MOVIN has declared WAR on bad radio, by playing fewer spots and charging more for them. Clear Channel led the way with LESS IS MORE, but breaks four times an hour for four or five shorter commericials. MOVIN plays four commercials, twice an hour: GAME OVER for KBKS and KUBE will have to do some rethinking.
 
Hang on a second. I am in sales and I take a bit of offense, which won't be popular on this board. Commercials help pay salaries and keep our industry growing. The market leaders in commercial loads are probably KOMO and KIRO, and on FM KBKS, KMPS, KZOK and KPLZ. These stations, with the exception of KBKS had pretty good Spring books and do fairly well. My point is that commercials are not evil. If a station only has music to sell, then fewer commercials are probably the answer to increasing your time spent listening. I would argue that all music only stations are poor advertising buys because the minute a commercial comes on the listener tunes out. Stations that offer more than music tend to hold people through commercial breaks. I would also argue that a well-done commercial is not necessarily a tune out. Okay, I already feel the attack coming at the sales guy. Bring it on.
 
Wrong!!! Commercials are annoying and the fewer the better. KMPS is a prime example of a station that played way too many commercials. WOLF plays only ten minutes of commercials an hour, versus 18 on KMPS at their prime. Do you really want to be the 8th commercial in a nine commercial set on KMPS or KBKS. Infinity stations play up to nine a break: GIVE ME A FREAKIN BREAK. Why would any advertiser pay for that? Why would anyone listen through that no matter how good the DJ or non-music element. KIRO has trimmed way back on their commercials, KOMO has more commercials than real news. Guess who is winning that battle: KIRO. WOLF plays ten minutes/KMPS 15 and guess who is now winning that battle. KUBE plays nine minutes and is number one in town. KJR-FM played nine and KBSG played 15 and KBSG got beaten. Now KBSG plays ten and they are coming back. There must be a balance. KBKS, KZOK, KMPS, KPLZ and KOMO are way out of balance and will pay the price, if not in ratings in results for their advertisers. Isn't that what sales people care about, getting clients to come back. MOVIN is bold in going to eight minutes and it will kill KBKS, but I doubt one minute less than KUBE will matter.
 
Two points to make here.
(1) I doubt the spot load on Movin is purely by choice. Don't you think that Marc K. would love to have more spots on 92-5? He still has to answer to the owners regarding the bottom line. And Movin is undoubtedly a tough sell on the streets with no history/no numbers, right Dan?
(2) Study after study shows that a station's P-1 listener will stay through their favorite station's stop set, almost regardless how long it is. Certainly there is an increase in dropoff the longer the break, but you'd be surprised how long a rabid P-1 will stick around. So the point Dan makes regarding "stations that offer more than music tend to hold people through commercial breaks" is valid.

No, I am not in sales.
No, I don't like long breaks either.
Commercials are a necessary evil.
 
kookookachoo... love the last comment... I needed that, had a good laugh w/that one! The reason it was soo funny? Cause it's true!
 
The Wolf should lighten its commercial load ::) Yeah, I went there.

DJDan, maybe you can answer this for someone who's not in the industry: Why not have fewer commercials and charge more for them? Companies get a better spot in a smaller pool and listeners get more content. Does that not work too well?
 
You don’t need a sales weasel like DJDan to explain the economics of radio sales.

It’s a fact, you CAN have fewer commercials and charge more for them. It's simple supply and demand. Clear Channel calls it “Less is More”. Just ask any anyone who works for CC about the mandate to sell 15’s and 30’s and how they can charge more than half the price of a 60 for it!

Most stations also practice yield management. That is, as the commercials sell out, you charge more for the remaining... kind of like how airlines sell tickets. You can buy a round trip to Philly for cheap if you buy it 6 weeks out. The day before…it’ll cost you.

The big question is will advertisers pay more for a spot based on availability? Some will, some won't. You’ll find most local direct advertisers can't afford to pay premium rates for low frequency. Conversely, most agencies can't afford NOT to be on the air and stations are able to charge more for those last minute avails.
 
Give the inflated promotion a rest mamma. Maybe rather than waisting time at your cubicle there in factoria expounding on the wonders of a lower-to-middle of the pack radio station to a microscopic group of radio geeks, perhaps your time would be better spent handing out T-shirts and beef jerky at the next "movin" promotion.
 
Kind of a bitter response Kelly. Maybe your station is one of the four or five prostituting their product with 15-20 commercials an hour. My guess is you work at Infinity or Fisher, maybe KISS. If you can't defend your ratings decline, can't defend your morning show and can't defend the outrageous spot load so you have to take personal shots. Why not explain what is wrong with offering 8 minutes of commercials an hour and charging more for them? Is that so wrong that you have to resort to name calling? Go ahead, defend playing 15-20 spots versus 8. Tell me how it benefits listeners and ratings. Would love to hear it. The Sandusky GM is joining Clear Channel in a stand against clutter and service to listeners and clients. What is wrong with that?
 
mammaknowsbest said:
Kind of a bitter response Kelly. Maybe your station is one of the four or five prostituting their product with 15-20 commercials an hour. My guess is you work at Infinity or Fisher, maybe KISS. If you can't defend your ratings decline, can't defend your morning show and can't defend the outrageous spot load so you have to take personal shots.
Click to expand...

Pretty bold statements built on assumptions there. You don't even know what station Kelly works for (if he/she works for one) in the first place, then assail the spotload at a station you don't know the name of.

mammaknowsbest said:
Why not explain what is wrong with offering 8 minutes of commercials an hour and charging more for them? Is that so wrong that you have to resort to name calling? Go ahead, defend playing 15-20 spots versus 8. Tell me how it benefits listeners and ratings. Would love to hear it. The Sandusky GM is joining Clear Channel in a stand against clutter and service to listeners and clients. What is wrong with that?
Click to expand...

Get over yourself. Music stations do not generally play 15-20 minutes worth of spots, with a possible exception of morning drive. They play them because they actually have ratings to sell and advertisers buy them. And you're kidding yourself if you think when Movin gets a morning jock that they are going to limit itself to eight spots an hour.

If you think Movin is at eight spots an hour because Marc Kaye wanted to "join Clear Channel," you need a reality check. The reason it was cut to eight spots was because the numbers they had to sell in the waning KLSY days was comparable to the number of people at any given time in a fast-food joint (I'm thinking Arby's).

As long as you're talking about listener benefits, let me ask you a question. How does having canned liners with no local content benefit listeners?
 
I find it sad that an intelligent thread about commercial load degraded into a name calling pissing contest.
 
At least I got my question answered. I figured you could charge more for fewer spots.

The big question is: Why wouldn't you do this? I usually listen to satellite radio (Sirius) and the talk radio has just a few commercials. When I listen to a terrestrial station in the morning at the gym, it's almos unbearable because of the commercial load.
 
evillemon said:
At least I got my question answered. I figured you could charge more for fewer spots.

The big question is: Why wouldn't you do this? I usually listen to satellite radio (Sirius) and the talk radio has just a few commercials. When I listen to a terrestrial station in the morning at the gym, it's almos unbearable because of the commercial load.
Click to expand...

Evil..It's more complex than that. Stations do not sell in an isolated environment. They are selling against the competition, other stations.

If Infinity...not to name names, just speaking in abstract here...is cutting their spot rate, you ...say for example "Less is more" Clear Channel, have to sell against that rate. So you can't run fewer units and expect to re-coup the entire difference. The agencies will play one station against the other.

It's a nasty little game, but it IS the game.
 
Absolutely correct! Rates aren't created in a vacuum. They are determined by demand and cost per point. For example: a piece of business comes down in the 18-34 demographic at 100 CPP. KUBE, number one in the demo and with only nine minutes of commercials an hour says 150 to get on. KBKS offers 100...KBKS gets the buy in most cases. They have twice as many units so they can offer 50% less and still win the game. That is why KBKS outbilled KUBE last year with 30% less ratings.

If KBKS runs twice as many commercials as KUBE, they can theoretically have half the ratings and still win the battle. This is why stations like KIRO and KOMO bill so well. Niether station is in the top ten 25-54 anymore, but each play 3 times as many commercials as the number one station in the market: KUBE. KUBE even beats KIRO and KOMO in the 25-54 demographic, but loses to them in revenue.

The game is about getting ratings and keeping listeners through commercials breaks. Running 8 commercials an hour will not allow you to win in revenue. Running 24 commercials an hour like KIRO and KOMO won't allow you to win in ratings. There must be a happy medium. In my view stations like KZOK, KMPS, KRWM, KPLZ, KBSG, KMTT have found a middle ground where they can have solid ratings in core demographics, play 12-15 commercials an hour, make money and still hold audience. I am not sure how they do it, but they do.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom