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Lite FM Now Ad Free For 4 Hours Mornings
- Thread starter Barry
- Start date
Just my opinion When you have been on Top as long as they have been. You can take chances Plus They are IHeart everything always works out for them
Sometimes "commercial-free hours" are actually sponsored by an advertiser, which means they get frequent mentions on-air and no competition from other advertisers during that time.
Plus they’re one of the top performing stations in the country for revenue.
It looks like their inventory is still healthy, regardless. Most of the commercial breaks for the remainder of the day look lengthy. Most are 10 minutes at minimum, and some hours have more than two stopsets. I noticed this around the holidays, too. More this year than ever before. It didn’t seem to hurt them in the December monthly, though, both in the city and the suburban markets, where they outperformed their festive competition.
Can’t argue with success, though I wonder how the audience will tolerate those extended breaks long term.
Yes, the post says “had been” commercial free for 3 hours. It’s now four, which only started earlier this year.
Nobody likes listening to commercials.
Why would a station that has consistently been number one in the ratings feel the need to make this move?
You're #1 and that's a big part of the reason.
The extra hour brings you better reach and distances yourself from #2
Your big audience increases the value of those commercial that do air and bolsters your cluster's chances at getting more of the ad budget. Increasing reach is important. Agencies pay a rate per thousand. The more listeners I can add the better
You're #1 and that's a big part of the reason.
The extra hour brings you better reach and distances yourself from #2
Your big audience increases the value of those commercial that do air and bolsters your cluster's chances at getting more of the ad budget. Increasing reach is important. Agencies pay a rate per thousand. The more listeners I can add the better
It’s IHeart unfortunately everything always works for them
AC stations are typically the strongest in the 9 AM to 5 PM hours because of at work and in home listening. With fewer people having radios at work and in the home, drive time becomes more important.
So the WLTW "commercial free" morning drive" hours would seem to be a way to accustom listeners to using the station in their cars while commuting.
Don’t most morning commutes end shortly after 9 AM? WLTW is commercial-free on weekdays, “till lunchtime."
My mistake in thinking the ad-free hours were all in drive time. Still, here are some perspectives based on looking at current full data and at NYC data pre-PPM...
The idea that all commutes end at 9 AM has been long minimized. Many retail outlets don't open till 10 AM. Lots of restaurants open at noon or just before. Shift workers (or casino workers in Nevada) may have a drive time at 2 AM, as an example.
Yes, the 7 AM and 8 AM hours are peak, but look at the traffic patterns in a variety of markets and you can see that the null hours are not much less than the peaks.
In the case of NYC, such a huge percentage of adults use public transit, commuting listening is much less, so they need to reinforce the end of "Drive Time" and the start of the "work time" listening (in my opinion).
When we had separate in-car and at-work numbers with the diary in NYC we saw that, while the average market had about 31% to 32% of listening in vehicles, in NYC it was around 25% to 26%.
During the holidays I timed one of the commercial breaks at 14 minutes!! Insane! But yeah I guess they figure the core of the ratings will be during the workday and a sharp drop off at night...
Three reasons:
#1-No sales people left to go out and get clients.
#2- Business': "We've decided to spend our ad dollars elsewhere where people may see and hear them. Like the sides of buses, online media and the backsides of animals at the zoo."
#3-We don't want to do that laughable 'dial in and create your own ad' crap.
That market does almost exclusively agency business when it comes to the top 20 or so stations. They sell a large amount through their corporate rep firm.
It's January. Most stations, historically ever since I have been in radio, bill less than 50% of a good month in January.
Again, mostly agency buys that come with agency produced spots.
But there STILL have to be a few local business' that would maybe, possibly like to advertise on a station or stations. But it seems like the big radio corporations make it almost impossible to do so. Unfortunately, I talked to a local business that did advertise on the "mom & pop" station that still has local sales people [more like a small group station] told me he might as well have thrown his money in the trash can. He got NO increase in his business from the ads so he declined when they came around again.
Yes, the 7 AM and 8 AM hours are peak, but look at the traffic patterns in a variety of markets and you can see that the null hours are not much less than the peaks.
I can concur on that. In my area 7-8 AM was the morning commute drive time 30-40 years ago. Since I am a nighttime person I'm usually up and just getting ready to go to bed so I've noticed that starting around 4 AM and definitely by 5 AM there's an absolute boatload of traffic heading for work at that time....wasn't like that decades ago.
I can concur on that. In my area 7-8 AM was the morning commute drive time 30-40 years ago. Since I am a nighttime person I'm usually up and just getting ready to go to bed so I've noticed that starting around 4 AM and definitely by 5 AM there's an absolute boatload of traffic heading for work at that time....wasn't like that decades ago.