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Live radio or VT after 7pm thoughts

I too work it every day and I do it with sales. Nobody wants after 7pm and many refuse any weekend spots. The only thing after 7pm and weekends are good for is bonusing units to get cost per thousand low enough to hopefully win the buy. At one station they'd sell an add on of say 10% of unsold avails after 7pm or on weekends for a set dollar amount, typically about 10% to 15% of the daytime weekday spot rate.

Finding somebody that can sell and is an on-air jock is about like buying the winning lottery ticket. Here there is virtually no cross-over from sales and programming. Simply put, if they can sell, they aren't going to pull an air shift.

Adding a 7 to Midnight shift likely will be a cost not a profit center and the only chance at anything is via local sales. Even then the universe of possible advertisers is minimal. Worse yet, the spot rate is so low the salesperson would rather manage their time selling daytime where the same amount of work makes them more money.

To say we lack vision is not dealing in reality.
Well if people in ad sales want to throw in the towel that is a shame.It can be done by syndicated it can also be done locally .People lack vision and say it can't be done but it can by thinking outside the box Plenty interns would jump at chance go on air if they got the basics and cost zero dollars.Dont tell me you can find a local sponcer for nights adverts it can be done .Here in UK Sky sponcer Chris Evans breakfast show and no ads are played from 6 to 10 am just sky sponcership liners don't tell me that mechanic can't be applied to nights on any station in USA .It can with vision .The easy way out is to moan and bitch for station owners the owners that make a buck find solutions and do not sit on the sidelines.
 
With all due respect, you live in Europe, where the marketplace is different (largely due to different regulatory structures).

It's really off-putting for you to keep making these predictions about the future of US radio, or how US radio stations should program themselves, when you don't appear to understand the present.
You offer nothing to this conversation .
 
Then why are you griping at us, put your money where your mouth is and show us where we're wrong. All you are at this point is ticked off because people in the business are trying to share our reality with you and you don't like it.
 
Not touchy at all. It just gets rather tiresome when armchair quarterbacks try to tell you something you know won't work because you've already tried it. You try to explain and get blasted for not having vision. The fact is your idea is a lost cause. The way you change minds is by doing what you want us to do and showing us it can work now. Obviously instead of proving your theory, you want to berate us as being touchy. Quit beating that dead horse.

Fact, at the first station I worked they wanted to bolster ad budgets so they offered a free commercial at night for every daytime spot you bought. They did that because they couldn't sell night spots and that was 1978.
 
Just had it listen good mix sounding good Kenny Chesney and Irish band The Script nice one 👍
Your fractured, no-punctuation English is hard to understand sometimes. (Apologies if it's not your first language.) Do you mean your station plays Chesney and The Script or that you heard those artists back-to-back on SomeRadioGuy's station via the internet? Either way, that's the sort of thing that works in this country only on noncommercial stations or eccentric rich guys' hobby operations. Oh, and satellite radio too, as part of musicians' "my favorite records" shows. I was listening to such a show yesterday, "Ronnie's Road Trip." hosted by Ronnie Dunn of Brooks and Dunn, and heard Van Morrison, America and Levon Helm (of The Band) in one set. Perfectly OK in the context of a weekly specialty hour on a channel the listeners are paying to hear, not likely to be attractive to listeners in great numbers or advertisers at all on a commercial station.
 
...back in the day we'd say that the overnight person was important, mostly because they were the warm up show, right before AM Drive began... our 5am hour ratings would often be about the same as the 6am hour.
 
Due to the snarky and disrespectful comments, I have suspended user Mido3737 for a period of seven days.
I also want to warn others who have written similar posts in this and other threads.
Keep your posts professional and respectful. It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to insult each other.

Thanks,

Frank
 
My first paying gig in radio (17 years ago) was 6p-12a at a small-town country station. Live until 11, VTd the last hour

I was able to work well independently and would produce spots, do the janitorial services, and load up/take down the station van for any remotes we’d do (remember those?)

I did all this for minimum wage…

So there is a market for a live night jock assuming one isn’t sitting in the studio all shift!
 
My first paying gig in radio (17 years ago) was 6p-12a at a small-town country station. Live until 11, VTd the last hour

I was able to work well independently and would produce spots, do the janitorial services, and load up/take down the station van for any remotes we’d do (remember those?)

I did all this for minimum wage…

So there is a market for a live night jock assuming one isn’t sitting in the studio all shift!


I know a small town station in illinois that about a decade ago had a live night jock 6 to mid.. the pay? $10 an hour!

what i have found, outside the major markets.. the small stations that are live 5/6am to mid.. often pay horribly
 
Well if that was the case why not got VT after the morning show and be done with it. The days of a jukebox on FM are gone and VT took if u ain't live you will die .

Ha! Ha! Ha! :ROFLMAO: I'm 100% automated, 100% local, 100% of the time. I don't have any live DJ's nor do I VT. I let the content speak for itself. Been "A Jukebox Styled LPFM Station" for six years now and intend to keep it that way.

Dan <><

P.S. Just so you know, I recognize the underwriters all around the clock too.​
 
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Sign off at 7:30 PM each day and save money.

If you run things properly, the cost can be minimal. FM stations are cheaper to run than AM.

The fact is that at one time, it was very common for radio stations to sign off at midnight or 1AM only because the FCC required live staffing of the transmitter. That rule was done away with in the 1970s. But I know a few people who got jobs at radio stations for no other reason than they had a 1st phone FCC license, and could operate the transmitter.
 
As for signing off at 7:30, unless you get a waiver from the FCC you must be on the air a minimum of 2/3rds of the hours 6am to 6pm na 2/3rds the hours from 6pm to Midnight except Sundays.

I'm glad to hear of DJs after 7pm in small markets. It's pretty rare. In my experience it is mostly a high school kid. The pay is always terrible.

A good question. What was the commercial load like during that shift 6pm to Midnight or 7pm to Midnight?
 
Sign off at 7:30 PM each day and save money.


Kirk Bayne

i mean, i see the logic in your comment.. but while listeners do drop off at night, theyre still there.. not in large numbers, depending on where you are.. but if you sign off and listeners go to look for you, they may not come back the next day.. for several days. It's like a double edged sword.... you wont save that much by signing off at 730pm anyways
 
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mean, i see the logic in your comment.. but while listeners do drop off at night, theyre still there.. not in large numbers, depending on where you are.. but if you sign off and listeners go to look for you, they may not come back the next day.. for several days. It's like a double edged sword.... you wont save that much by signing off at 730pm anyways
... and it's easier on the transmitter if it stays on 24/7. Most failures occur at transmitter power-up.
 
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