Favorite non-commercial Music Station? Also, any of them playing pop?

From the listener standpoint, the difference to their ears is becoming more and more blurred between that of the commercial and Underwriting Acknowledgement.

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On the radio side I don't know that I buy that. I think there's still a lot of people who hear a major difference between "public radio" and "commercial radio". After all, it's still a successful selling point during fundraisers to convince listeners to donate. Admittedly, a lot of that is undoubtedly the difference in raw time the sponsorship messages eat up of every hour. Hard to argue with 3 or 4 minutes vs. 20 minutes per hour, regardless of what the content sounds like.

I would agree with you that "underwriting" has progressively inched towards sounding more and more "commercial" over time, but I would counter-point that a LOT of commercials have also gotten progressively "worse" (i.e. more obnoxious) in that same time period, too. I'd guesstimate the discernible difference between the two has remained fairly constant.

Ain't that the truth! I recall when XM first came out, one of their selling points was the commercial channels were limited to 8 minutes of commercial time an hour. That was much more the norm after the concept of 'more music' happened and it pretty much stayed that way into the 1990s.

On the non-commercial side, less time is eaten up in underwriting but there is a bunch in drive times. Was listening to Minnesota Public Radio not long ago and I bet there were 15 to 20 between the NPR, State Network and Local inserts. I'd say under most conditions maybe 6 an hour and 2 minutes would be a busy hour.

Commercials are horrible. Instead of striving to match the format with commercials, stations chose to let anything go on the air. Unfortunately some afvertisers believe annoying works and sure enough people tell others about terrible commercials.

Great point on the difference. Early on in my career quite a few did a soft sell or more 'institutional' spot that today would come close to passing for enhanced underwriting.

I really like WNCW in Asheville, North Carolina. I discovered it on a trip back from South Carolina last summer and I listen online a lot. What you hear depends on the time of day, the overnight show rocks a bit harder than programming during the day which tends to be more Americana-sounding. They also do an excellent bluegrass show during the day on Saturdays.

I also listen to WWOZ in New Orleans, they play a lot of New Orleans-style jazz as is to be expected, but their evening shows have a lot of variety, often playing old obscure blues, R&B and soul music I've never heard anywhere else.

aaronread said:

From the listener standpoint, the difference to their ears is becoming more and more blurred between that of the commercial and Underwriting Acknowledgement.

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On the radio side I don't know that I buy that. I think there's still a lot of people who hear a major difference between "public radio" and "commercial radio". After all, it's still a successful selling point during fundraisers to convince listeners to donate. Admittedly, a lot of that is undoubtedly the difference in raw time the sponsorship messages eat up of every hour. Hard to argue with 3 or 4 minutes vs. 20 minutes per hour, regardless of what the content sounds like.

I would agree with you that "underwriting" has progressively inched towards sounding more and more "commercial" over time, but I would counter-point that a LOT of commercials have also gotten progressively "worse" (i.e. more obnoxious) in that same time period, too. I'd guesstimate the discernible difference between the two has remained fairly constant.

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I don't know how public radio stations operate anywhere else but where I am they are running underwriting spots of 30 seconds or more. They even let the "client" do his own spots. They frequently push the envelope on calls to action and comparisons. Worst of all, they pass off infomercials as news. The station does an extended puff-piece (sometimes pulling out of Morning Edition to run it) for some drug or medical procedure and at the end of the break there is a sponsorship credit for an organization making, offering or somehow involved in it.

Most annoying at all are the more-frequent and ever-longer pledge campaigns with Morning Edition's B and E segments (sometimes more) preempted, and ATC's B and D segments also dropped for begathons and buildaguilt harangues. Especially galling are pitches in which they tell you how great the programming is which they are not letting you hear for two weeks.

Public television also has pledge drives. They stop the show for an obnoxious pitch but you still can see the whole show (and fast forward through the pledge segments). But radio takes away from the reason you listen in the first place.

And public radio is the ultimate public-sector money waster. The suits make big bucks (the manager gets close to a million a year). They have a fancy building or prime real estate and always the latest and best equipment. NPR shows cost money and NPR throws money away, too. They also have a new building. Plus a redundant building in LA. Satellite links where Skype would do fine. Bigfoot junkets for hosts. And just listen to the Friday credits: All sorts of button pushers, knob twisters and gofers. A board op and a director with a script to tell the board op when to op. If they ran an economical operation, they might not need to spend so much time for pledge drives or to prostitute public radio in the sales department (I mean "underwriting").

Before somebody says it, yes, I know there are less than well-off public radio stations in the sticks but most of the audience is listening to the high-on-the-hog "member stations."

almaniac27 said:

I really like WNCW in Asheville, North Carolina. I discovered it on a trip back from South Carolina last summer and I listen online a lot. What you hear depends on the time of day, the overnight show rocks a bit harder than programming during the day which tends to be more Americana-sounding. They also do an excellent bluegrass show during the day on Saturdays.

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Thanks, I'll check them out again. I know I looked at them once but the playlist looked a little too much Celtic and Americana, but I didn't check out the nighttime shows since I'm usually listening at work. I look around a bit more at their other shows.

Was listening to Minnesota Public Radio not long ago and I bet there were 15 to 20 between the NPR, State Network and Local inserts.

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15 to 20 minutes? Sorry, you're hallucinating on that one, dude. ;D

I don't recall the exact "clock" for Morning Edition off the top of my head, but I know the "standard" clock (that Tell Me More, On Point, Talk of the Nation, and most of the non-newsmagazine shows use) goes as follows:

00:00-01:00 Billboard
01:00-04:00 NPR Newscast 1
04:00-06:30 NPR Newscast 2 (cutaway for local newscast)
06:30-19:00 A Segment
19:00-20:00 Local Break
20:00-38:30 B Segment
38:30-40:00 Local Break
40:00-59:00 C Segment
59:00-59:59 (nothing; legal ID local break)

That's an absolute maximum of six minutes of underwriting spots. More realistically it's three minutes and thirty seconds of spots per hour, since no station I know of fills the NPR Newscast 2 segment solely with spots (they do 2 minutes local news and then maybe a 30 seconds of spots) and figure 15 to 30 seconds of the legal ID break has to be the legal ID itself; a lot of NPR stations are actually networks, but of course this varies a lot.

And that assumes that 3:30 is solely given over to underwriting spots, which would be fairly rare. Usually at least 30 to 60 seconds are promos, and there's often a weather forecast or two in there somewhere, too.

Like I said, Morning Edition is on a different clock, with a couple more breaks, more newscast cutaways, and in theory I think you could somehow do about 10 minutes of spots but nobody would do that. At least five minutes of that 10 is for local newscasts.

Another thing you're not supposed to see...but if FredLeonard's observations are accurate (something I have to question given your not-terribly accurate screed there, Fred) then at least one station is seriously breaking the rules of their NPR Member Station Agreement...is news stories that are thinly disguised commercials for a product. You hear that a lot on commercial news stations, where a "commercial" is aired as part of a newscast and sounds like it's still part of the newscast, even though it's really a commercial. That's a major no-no on NPR member stations.

I think the assertion was 15 to 20 UCs, not 15 to 20 minutes of UCs.

15 to 20 UCs per hour during ME is completely plausible. Off the top of my head, since it's been a while since I've hosted ME:

:00 billboard
:01 NPR news I
:04 NPR news II
:06 national news UC (1), local news
:09:30 local UCs (could be 2)
:10 A block
:19 2 minute local break (let's say 3 UCs here)
:21 B block
:28:20 national UCs (2)
:29 1 minute local break (let's say 1 UC here)
:30 bleeble
:30:30 NPR news, 1 national news UC
:33:30 local news (and let's say 1 UC)
:35:30 C block
:39:30 30-second local break (1 UC?)
:40 D block
:49 2 minute local break (3 UCs)
:51 NPR business report (1 UC)
:58:20 national UCs (2)
:59 1 minute local break (2 UCs)

That's 20 UCs, and even if you figure :20 per UC (which is high, especially for the national UCs), it's still only 6 minutes or so of UCs out of the hour.

Scott Fybush said:

...it's been a while since I've hosted ME

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Woah, most of us only know of you as the world's #1 radio historian.

Oh I see, thanks Scott...and apologies Bturner, I thought you meant MINUTES, not number of spots. You can see why I'd be a bit perplexed about 20 minutes of underwriting spots. That'd be damn hard to achieve in public radio.

Yeah, 20 spots per hour, assuming 10 to 20 seconds per spot, is probably a pretty healthy spot load. I think RIPR's is around 10 to 20 per hour, depending on the hour...IIRC, WBUR's is more like 30 but they're more strict about the 10 seconds per spot limit.

That all said, I think this discussion certainly paints a stark contrast between the bulk of NPR member stations and your typical commercial news station...5 or 6 minutes of spots vs. 20 minutes of spots. And don't discount the content of the spots either. Most underwriting spots have no music, no sound effects, and no shouting. (not to mention no calls to action, no price information, and no sale information) It's not to say that it makes underwriting exactly "pleasant" to listen to, but it's a hell of a lot less obnoxious than most commercials.

FWIW, it's not illegal to allow a client to voice their own underwriting spots, but it is a little unusual in the sense that few clients are going to sound nearly as good on the air as a trained radio professional. The spots being longer than 30 seconds is illegal, though. (well, in a roundabout way; the FCC said they don't see how spots over 30 seconds could not, by definition, be promotional...and thus prohibited)

Distinguishing between a commercial and Underwriting announcement ... the point I was trying to make"

Commercial: Call us now at 555-1212. We're conveniently located at 1st and Main

Underwriting: The number is 555-1212. They're located at 1st and Main.

Not what I call a huge difference there...same info with some minor word changes to make it 'legal'. No mention of screaming car dealers, etc. Not every commercial aired is like that.

Most enhanced underwiting spots seem to be in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 seconds. The FCC has even hinted anything over 30 seconds might be in danger of overstepping 'underwriting' but I'd look at this as not illegal but more of a red flag to the broadcaster. In other words, it's a reason to look harder at what the station is doing to be sure they're not crossing the line. Under almost every situation, 30 seconds is plenty of time to properly credit an Underwriter.

Having clients voice their underwriting is a stoke of genius. How many clients that run into a financial crunch are going to cancel themselves (aka their voice)? How many friends say, Hey Joe I heard your spot on that radio station today versus Hey Joe, I heard YOU on that radio station today...must be hard up to let you on, ha, ha, ha. Instant results from friends, neighbors, customers, etc.

When forced to render an opinion, the FCC said more than about 6 underwriting units an hour was excessive but failed to clarify the obvious questions of: is that per hour or on a 24 hour average or weekly average, etc? Certainly we can sell many more units per hour in morning and afternoon drive on weekdays than we can 3 to 5am 7 days a week. I think the answer is, if you do it right and run 20 an hour in drive time the FCC is mum on the subject. It's when it obviously sounds like a commercial station the FCC has to speak up. The Underwriting Spot might run 60 seconds but if done well within the guidelines there would be no issue with the FCC.

ai4i said:

Scott Fybush said:

...it's been a while since I've hosted ME

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Woah, most of us only know of you as the world's #1 radio historian.

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I wear a lot of hats...including, from time to time, filling in as the local program host/newscaster at WXXI here in Rochester

Having clients voice their underwriting is a stoke of genius. How many clients that run into a financial crunch are going to cancel themselves (aka their voice)? How many friends say, Hey Joe I heard your spot on that radio station today versus Hey Joe, I heard YOU on that radio station today...must be hard up to let you on, ha, ha, ha. Instant results from friends, neighbors, customers, etc.

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It's a good idea but the line is a bit finer than that. Mark Lapidus's "Promo Power" column in Radio World had a bit about client-voiced spots a few years ago and I can't find it now, but I vaguely recall that it can be a good idea with clients for certain industries but really horrible with others...IIRC supermarkets were one of the bad ones...because the clients always want to talk about the same things and those things don't translate well to radio advertising principles. I think the example was that supermarkets always want to talk about how long they've been in business when that's a concept that listeners rarely care about; they care about how convenient the store is to their daily routine more than anything else, or something like that. Like I said, it's been a few years.

Anyways, a lot also rides on how good a voice the client is. Some clients are really good, and some are just frickin' gawdawful behind the mic. Most tend to be more towards the latter than the former, but some can be coached up to a good enough level. Tough to know how well they'll respond to coaching before you sign the contract, too. But the bottom line is that it can be deadly to have a poor-sounding spot, especially in public radio where high audio quality is written right into the charter. Going from the soothing dulcet tones of Frank Tavares to Joe Blow's mumbling, flat-affect voice is a huge tune-away.

I do tend to agree about poor quality voices but sometimes it works the opposite way.

In Houston there was a guy that insisted on voicing his own spots. Some stations refused him. Others would only run his spots during late night. A few just needed the money. Today the guy has the largest volume single location furniture store on earth and still voices his spots. I'm not a fan of his spots but love him or hate him everybody knows him and his business name. And he never runs price and item.

In smaller communities a poor sounding client isn't that big a deal since most people are known or known of.

I think we sometimes get too hung up on what we have all been taught all these years. Many times the audience just hears a real person and never things the voice is 'unprofessional'.

That's true.

Scott can back me up here, there's Fuccillo Ford/Hyundai/Every Car Made On Earth, which has something like two dozen dealerships from Buffalo to Albany along the Thruway, and ALL their ads are done by the staff with a one-camera, one-shot setup. They are cheesy as hell but he buys enough ad time that it's hard to escape them. I'm sure Fuccillo is accounting for over 50% of the spot load on some TV stations up there! : And the guy himself is notorious for ending every commercial with "it's gonna be HUGE, RAW-CHEST-TAH, HUUUUUUU-JAH!!!" (or substitute Syracuse, Seneca Falls, Buffalo, etc for "Rochester")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXRaboSo70A

So he's got the volume and a schtick that's fairly memorable. The uber-cheesiness and lack of production values (or talent values) are effectively neutralized, or even leveraged to make it even more memorable.

On the other extreme, I've seen husband/wife businesses try and do a formal script for a radio ad with the actual husband and wife and it just sounds so painfully forced.

I suppose the real takeaway here is that there's just so many variables in play that one can't really make a blanket statement on the subject.

LOL. You guys are great--this is one of those threads that weaves all over the place, but here we are back on underwriting.

You may or may not recall that earlier in this meandering conversation I cited the Viking River Cruise spots on Downton Abbey as "enhanced underwriting" that seemed to bother no one. To wit:

From About.com's Tourism site--

"In what will go down as one of the shrewdest marketing decisions in the cruise industry, Viking River Cruises returns as a sponsor of Masterpiece Theater. That means millions of fans will once again witness those beautifully photographed commercials, complete with British-accented narrator expounding the wonders of river cruising."

Commercials? COMMERCIALS!?

It's okay. They're "beautifully photographed!"

mcrawford620 said:

Thanks, I'll check them out again. I know I looked at them once but the playlist looked a little too much Celtic and Americana, but I didn't check out the nighttime shows since I'm usually listening at work. I look around a bit more at their other shows.

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I'll second the WNCW. Very Americana during the day, but ARC Overnight is all over the place in a good way.

Here in Dallas/Fort Worth, my favorites are both NPR affiliated.

- KERA 90.1 FM (News/Talk/Info)
- 91.7 KXT (AAA)

texasstooge said:

Here in Dallas/Fort Worth, my favorites are both NPR affiliated.

- KERA 90.1 FM (News/Talk/Info)
- 91.7 KXT (AAA)

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Yes! KXT is awesome, simply excellent music choices with enough Texas flavor to keep it sounding different.