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Repetitive PSAs!

W

wadio

Lately I'm not hearing many paid ads in the streams I listen to. Hopefully that will change as the fall shopping season gets underway.

Meanwhile I'm hearing pairs of Ad Coucil PSAs that repeat as often as 6 or 7 times in a single break! What's with that? If the PSAs are placeholders until more ads are purchased, why not at least run a bunch of different PSAs in a break?

This (along with pre-rolls) is a real turn-off. As a listener, it feels like they're trying to drive me away. I assume it's being done by the streaming providers, not the stations. Am I right? But don't the broadcast companies care if listeners are being turned off?

Ad Council spots are annoying enough when you hear them once during a break. Over and over and over and over is real torture!
 
Hey Wadio - you might also be the victim of GEOBLOCKING - if you are streaming.
I listen to a LOT of radio from around the world and I find that geo-blocking is happening more and more as clients are not prepared to pay for their ads to run on a stream outside the broadcast area. As a result - I hear many, many PSAs.
I tend to now use a VPN to focus in on the city or country I want to hear the stream from - and bingo - you get the ads too.
Yes - I listen for the ads - not for the content - but I am a copywriter - what do you expect!?
 
wadio said:
Ad Council spots are annoying enough when you hear them once during a break. Over and over and over and over is real torture!
Click to expand...
I take it that these intelligence-insulting Ad Council ads air when nobody has actually bought that time. ESPN Radio and the other national sports networks used to be notorious for overrunning these in the middle of the night when they didn't sell the time. Don't know if they still do, because I haven't listened to their overnight programming in several years.
 
The way I understand it, many times the talent doing the spot wants payment for clearance on the internet stream but the ad agency that hired the talent to voice the client's commercial is not willing to pay the talent for online airings. So the station must cover the spot with something.
 
This is that the advertiser especially a local advertiser only wants their ads in the radio market they are located.

I know when I listen to Iheart or Audacy app outside my local market via streaming Iheart and Audacy will use national ads, PSA's and promoting their podcasts and concerts they are sponsoring on their feeds to avoid local contract violations with the local advertiser.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
This is that the advertiser especially a local advertiser only wants their ads in the radio market they are located.

I know when I listen to Iheart or Audacy app outside my local market via streaming Iheart and Audacy will use national ads, PSA's and promoting their podcasts and concerts they are sponsoring on their feeds to avoid local contract violations with the local advertiser.
Click to expand...
I will get those but also adds for my area when I listen to out of town stations on iHeart.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
This is that the advertiser especially a local advertiser only wants their ads in the radio market they are located.
Click to expand...
The main reason station's ads are not run on streams is not because local accounts even care about that... it is that most national account that use union voices (SAG-AFTRA) don't want to pay the additional fees for streaming.
 
b-turner said:
The way I understand it, many times the talent doing the spot wants payment for clearance on the internet stream but the ad agency that hired the talent to voice the client's commercial is not willing to pay the talent for online airings. So the station must cover the spot with something.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it is not at the talent level... it is SAG/AFTRA that would charge the agency and client for the streaming fee.
 
It happens on HD2/HD3 subchannels, too, not just online streams. NYC's "Smooth Jazz 102.7" (WNEW-FM-HD2) has "commercial breaks" that are entirely PSAs -- no actual commercials.
 
wadio said:
Lately I'm not hearing many paid ads in the streams I listen to.
Click to expand...

It's hard to address this without knowing the specifics. There are so many variables with regards to where things originate and how the platform operates. Pretty much every one of the answers I've read here could apply.

The one thing that is fairly consistent is that the people who do the content have no control over what happens in the breaks. Those are two different worlds. Perhaps even literally. So while the content people are probably very concerned about your listening experience, they have nothing to say about the spots or the way those spots are implemented.
 
Earl Pilkington said:
Hey Wadio - you might also be the victim of GEOBLOCKING - if you are streaming.
I listen to a LOT of radio from around the world and I find that geo-blocking is happening more and more as clients are not prepared to pay for their ads to run on a stream outside the broadcast area. As a result - I hear many, many PSAs.
I tend to now use a VPN to focus in on the city or country I want to hear the stream from - and bingo - you get the ads too.
Yes - I listen for the ads - not for the content - but I am a copywriter - what do you expect!?
Click to expand...
Earl, that's very helpful. I'll experiment and see what happens here. If it's OK with you I might have more questions.

BTW, I've been involved in ad production including copywriting for years so I LOVE listening to ads that are original to the local the stations. Ads that are local to my area are the next best thing. Actually it's good to know that my ears have some value to the advertisers.

Many thanks for the info!
 
KeithE4 said:
I take it that these intelligence-insulting Ad Council ads air when nobody has actually bought that time. ESPN Radio and the other national sports networks used to be notorious for overrunning these in the middle of the night when they didn't sell the time. Don't know if they still do, because I haven't listened to their overnight programming in several years.
Click to expand...
The Ad Council spots seem to appear and disappear in cycles.

Years ago the stations would often insert music loops to fill the space of the local spots. The loops were generally awful and very repetitive. Then the Ad Council spots started to appear.

"Intelligence-insulting" is exactly the correct term, ranging from the absolute jerks and pyromaniacs who they say should adopt children, to the children who are wise beyond their years. An oldie I just heard again recently is about an electrician being taught how to use the Internet to find work. He is portrayed as being "slow." He types, "Eee....leck....trish......een." Then at the end of the spot he says, "Why...........didn't..........I..........think of............this............sooner?" An electrician in todays world has to deal with very sophisticated electronics and is probably a lot more capable than the MBA who's coaching him!

The only positive change these days is that most of the Ad Council spots are :30s, not :60s.
 
TheBigA said:
The one thing that is fairly consistent is that the people who do the content have no control over what happens in the breaks. Those are two different worlds. Perhaps even literally. So while the content people are probably very concerned about your listening experience, they have nothing to say about the spots or the way those spots are implemented.
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Understood. But I wonder if they could at least TRY to do something about it. Maybe threatening to use a different streaming service would help?
 
wadio said:
Maybe. But it's hard to believe that someone from the station doesn't tune in online from time to time, maybe when out of the area.
Click to expand...

I wonder who that would be. And you're assuming what they'd hear at the studio is what you'd hear where you are.
 
FWIW, Ted David, who I'd say knows a thing or two about radio, made an excellent post today over on the NYRMB about this issue.

Among his comments:

Well, if you're going to stream a radio station, you should care as much about irritating the listeners on the stream as you do about irritating the listeners on the AM or FM band.

Bingo!! My point is that they don't seem to care, about this and other streaming issues, and since the world is moving in the direction of streaming ... they should.
 
wadio said:
Well, if you're going to stream a radio station, you should care as much about irritating the listeners on the stream as you do about irritating the listeners on the AM or FM band.
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It's fairly obvious that no broadcaster cares about annoying the listener with spots, online or off. I mean, we just finished an election, and there are no more annoying spots politicians and political action committees.

I agree with you, philosophically. But I'm not in a position where I have to worry about the dollars and cents.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
It's fairly obvious that no broadcaster cares about annoying the listener with spots, online or off. I mean, we just finished an election, and there are no more annoying spots politicians and political action committees.

I agree with you, philosophically. But I'm not in a position where I have to worry about the dollars and cents.
Click to expand...
At least for now.
 
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