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WNCI had 21 minutes of commercials in the 11:00 am hour
- Thread starter william#1
- Start date
Do you know that's what they do 🤣🤣 are you privy
Most people?
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Who are the people who pay for radio? Advertisers. What they believe matters, even if its wrong.
Which daypart has live hosts, and which daypart has syndicated or no hosts?
I think there's a lot more to that study that you don't see, specifically the results of the different formats.
I agree mid-days are bigger in talk and AC. Not CHR.
You are correct that we can't force people to listen. But they do. We also don't require them to give us personal information, log on with user name and password, and they don't give us their credit card numbers. Which is why we have to run commercials.
What some posters might not understand is the rates stations can get per commercial is dependent on what the advertising agencies determine as the cost per thousand. In other words, the ad agency pretty much sets the rate you get. Sure you can bonus nights and weekends to manipulate that rate to match the ad agency's cost per thousand. Generally higher rated stations get more because they have more listeners. 21 minutes is excessive in my book but the industry is to the point you simply cannot afford to not take orders. 40 years ago you could sit in the order and take orders over the phone if you were really popular. Today you do everything you can to win the buy. And if it took 21 minutes to pay salaries, rent, regulatory fees, city, county and state fees, electric, music licensing and all the other essentials, I'd do it versus losing money without a second thought.
Those stations mentioned (that are commercial) that run fewer commercials, the reason might well be they can't sell more because the ad agencies aren't buying them.
A last note: in every major market and most medium markets, there just is not the businesses that don't have an advertising agency directing their advertising. Sure, you get the $200 a month types but if they did that it would have to be 60 minutes an hour!
Those stations mentioned (that are commercial) that run fewer commercials, the reason might well be they can't sell more because the ad agencies aren't buying them.
A last note: in every major market and most medium markets, there just is not the businesses that don't have an advertising agency directing their advertising. Sure, you get the $200 a month types but if they did that it would have to be 60 minutes an hour!
Exactly! The music SUCKS! Why aren't Kodak Black and Dua Lipa writing more songs about hot dog and pop sales on the mobile app at 7-Eleven? Where's Diane Warren when you need her?
Seriously, look at what else is hot in CHR now: Luke Combs, Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan, Morgan Wallen. I've been listening to Top 40 for over 50 years and yes, I know Country music has always had pop crossovers and always will. But in this SHEER volume??
I mean, if it's really gotten to the point Country music is overtaking Top 40. then CHR is in a more precarious position now than it was in 1993 with the Grunge/Hip-Hop duality forcing stations to pick one side or the other. The only difference is awareness. Because CHR typically at best has one or two, not four or five charting Country songs at any given time. And most often, no Country music at all.
And yes, Beyonce made a Country record. Great. But I've said this before, Country music isn't like the old magazine ads for Seagram's whiskey - It doesn't mix with everything. It may be a hot current trend with labels and radio programmers, but if CHR is trending down, it's probably also turning a lot of people off.
But right now, somewhere in Columbus, somebody has finally reached the breaking point halfway during the 10 consecutive spot and yelled uncle. They whipped out their smartphone, downloaded the Spotify app, gleefully entered their own personal information, user name/password and credit card number and was jamming to SZA by the end of the 12th consecutive spot on WNCI.
Free is only great if it's acceptable. If people have the means to afford Spotify (and millions do), they'll opt for something better.
Maybe look at their on-air schedule. The syndicated Ryan Seacrest show is on at that time, so a ton of those spots are national clearance for carrying the show. Also, 11am isn't a heavily listened-to time slot, so stations tend to run barter spots during off-peak hours to satisfy contracts.
Besides, you apparently had enough time to waste to notice that they played 21 minutes of spots that hour, so maybe you were the only one inconvenienced.
Let me ask you this, and please answer seriously: How many years of experience do YOU have working in Radio? In programming, on-air, sales, anything. How many checks have you written for staff, FCC fees, tower maintenance, etc.? Maybe you can look at our point of view and realize that we live in the real world and have to pay for everything YOU, THE LISTENER, get to enjoy for free.
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A lot of people do both. They do Spotify or Apple when they know what they want. They do radio when they want someone else to make the playlist. There's a time for each one. They each have advantages and disadvantages.
People in radio would love to eliminate all commercials. It's the one thing they don't control. They have no choice.
I'm starting to wonder if this 21 minutes thing was an automation mistake. I've seen a number of stations where the automation defaults to commercials if the syndicated program that normally airs isn't there. The OP should listen again and see if it happens again, and if it happens in other dayparts.
And there are two facts:
First, radio has no other income except commercials.
Second, those “play the same songs” don’t really mean that. That statement really means “you play some songs I don’t like“. Generally, that means the station is plays too deep a library, resulting in a lot of secondary songs being played.
I don't know how many people do this, but for me, on commercial radio shows that I listen to a lot, I get a feel for the length of spot breaks. When the commercials start, I go elsewhere for what I think is about the time to return. I'm, usually, pretty close. If I come back too early, I still know that there can't be that many commercials, and other non-show content left. If I misjudge and come back a little late, I'll either be into an early part of the first song after the break, or I'll know what is being talked about, and can easily catch up.
None, though I still made a pretty good argument as to why 21 minutes is excessive and North American broadcasting is most likely making a profit not doing 21 minutes but I don't 100% know because I don't actually work there. Do you think they're not making a profit? They have been in business for decades but maybe they're not making any profit. I never thought of it that way, thank you lmfao
Operator error most likely. As an advertiser you wouldn't like your spot played 20 minutes into this. Maybe someone was in the production studio recording more spots and didn't know he screwed up the automation. In radio stuff happens.
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Obviously you know everything you need to know about Radio and nobody else's opinion means a damn thing. Advertising revenue is down across the board. Maybe you don't watch TV. The average commercial hour long TV show is actually only around 42 to 43 minutes, meaning they build in 17 to 18 minutes each hour for spots, promos, etc. But you've got nothing to say about that.
The clock for the Ryan Seacrest show has 12 minutes per hour of spot breaks, plus optional fill time. But I don't need to explain that to you since you know everything. It's downloaded via FTP for playback, so it's very likely that a segment was corrupted and the automation system automatically fills with commercials, but I don't need to explain that to you because you know everything about Radio.
LMFAO my ass. Your whole argument is that you listened to ONE hour, heard something anomalous, and decided to make a thread to indict the whole Radio industry based on YOUR opinion as a listener. You don't care what we have to say because you know everything, don't you?
Terrestrial Radio is dying as we know it, and it won't look the same way in 25 years as it does today. Blame it on the inaction of the FCC, Radio's unwillingness to embrace digital in a timely fashion, and smartphone makers being unwilling to include an FM chipset that MAY have provided a way to reach people on their devices. Radio is also to blame because too many broadcasters forgot the ONE advantage we have over Pandora, Spotify and the rest: our ability to be LOCAL. Our ability to connect to the listener and their community, instead of being a jukebox playing the same 400 songs over and over with NO personality and no reason to make people want to return day after day. I DO blame iHeart and Cumulus for trying to force someone in Columbus GA to listen to someone voice tracking from Columbus OH, because the two cities are nothing alike, but that's the realities of being owned by investment firms and driven by profit. And that's why, if you'd spent ANY time inside a Radio station, you'd find there are still people who give a damn about this business and give everything they've got everyday to do a good job, and you'd find out that sometimes we do the best with the hand we're dealt, and that armchair critics really do contribute nothing to solving the problems Radio faces.
Spending too much time on this board reading these comments can lead to making mistakes on the air. I know this all to well.