Would an advertiser be willing to pay big bucks to be on a 'sports station powerhouse' if they knew their spot was shoe-horned into one of these big mega-blocks
Why, as a matter of fact, they are and do. This is one of those questions which contains its own answer.
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that chase listeners away?
There is no evidence of that, especially with specialty talk stations. ANY station can expect to lose a percentage of its audience during any commercial break, whether it’s 30 seconds or 6 minutes. But the overwhelming majority of all radio listeners, over 90% will stick around for as long as it takes. The biggest hits are taken by music stations in the 12-17 demographic, where upwards of 10% bail pretty quickly and 20% if the break goes longer than three minutes. This doesn’t apply to talk radio in general and especially to WEEI in particular. But the research shows that a six minute pod only loses a percentage or two more than a shorter break, and, depending on the station and how they handle the break, and the ‘quality‘ of the commercials, sometimes there is no drop off.
The radio station execs know they are chasing listeners away...sometimes for good.
For good? Like never to return? Or only for that show? Here is what radio executives really do know, since they paid for the research……
Listeners are more tolerant of long commercial breaks in AMD than in other dayparts
The drop-off as breaks increase from 1 minute to 3 minutes to 6 minutes isn’t a straight line progression.
Listeners are more tolerant when there is no other place to go for their desired programming…. most folks listening to D&C probably are not going to jump to ESPN or SNR (despite what you may read here.).
Music formats are more sensitive to commercial-phobics, especially in the younger demos, than are talk stations or those with an older listenership. This is why CC cleaned up the clocks on their younger-skewing music stations.
The only way to avoid losing folks to commercials breaks is not to have them. Most stations don’t think going broke is a wise listener-retention strategy. YMMV.
They even poke fun at themselves for it, on occasion.
If they poke fun at it, it’s because they know that almost everyone is still hanging in there and they want to keep it that way. By dropping in the gags, they are actually extending the length of the break, but don’t seem to be too concerned about it. Do you understand how radio programming works?
There are lots of ways to kill off listenership, but commercial breaks are nowhere near the top of the list. I think 20 minutes of ‘good old’ New England Revolution ‘soccer’ talk would kiss off more WEEI listeners than a well-constructed 10 minute commercial break.
So what kind of ad salesman would be stupid enough to throw big numbers in front of a client with the knowledge that those 'big numbers' fall off a cliff when their spot is being run?
Probably ones who are aware that the numbers don’t fall off a cliff. This statement of yours is about as wrong as it can be. Advertisers have always known that there is a drop off in listenership when a commercial break starts but, interestingly, ARB shows remarkably less drop-off (by 25-40%) from commercial breaks than the radio stations and advertisers themselves previously believed, so they are actually more ahead of the game than they thought. They understand how the game is played. But, I’m sure they appreciate your concern for their well-being.
What really pisses off advertising professionals is what some people think is a good thing, talent informing listeners how long a commercial break is going to last, essentially telling everyone how long they have to get a cup of coffee or make a trip to the men’s room, thereby guaranteeing fewer listeners than if they just went into the break. Let them guess how long it’s going to be.
And do clients throw those big numbers right back at the salesman and laugh at them while doing so?
No. They sign on the bottom line because they are paid to understand the medium and what the ‘numbers’ really mean, and consider that what you seem to think is so important as immaterial to the discussion.
They should.
The dumb ones, maybe. Especially the ones who take their information from message boards. But, they don’t last long enough to become big clients.
Regards,
TSB
