How can ANYONE'S IQ increase listening to 40 minutes of REPEATING
commercials an hour?

But, wait a minute! Someone says there is a fine line between genius
and INSANITY! That must be why....(c;

It would seem that listening to Clear Channel would only tend to melt
the brain into a mass resembling chocolate pudding.....

I almost lost it, last night, after I'd seen the stupid Gateway
Computers cow feet come through the ceiling over the bed for the 72nd
time in 2 hours. Who programs this ****?



On 19 Dec 2003 17:55:15 GMT, (Vijay) wrote:

Someone mentioned that while watching too much TV decreases IQ, Radio
listening is actually shown to increase IQ. Is there any concrete
evidence/sites/publishings in this regard ?

Thanks.

Vijay


Larry W4CSC

NNNN

Larry W4CSC wrote:
How can ANYONE'S IQ increase listening to 40 minutes of REPEATING
commercials an hour?

But Larry, that's the whole point. Repetition is the key to getting people
to remember the commercial!

My favorite example: Sunland Ford/Lincoln/Mercury in nearby Victorville,
California. I have heard their stupid cutesy slogan and company jingle so
many times I could literally sing it in my sleep. But I remember it.

The worst is when I'm driving over on the west side of Victorville and
I pass their lot and then hear the jingle on the radio. (Happens more often
than you might think.)

Since the High Desert only has one television station (KHIZ-TV 64 in
Victorville), most of the residents of this area get their local programming
from the Los Angeles television stations via satellite or cable. Well, Sunland
has bought copious amounts of advertising time from the local cable company
too. And it's not even a few different spots, it's the same one. Over, and
over, and over, ad nauseum. I'm sure that if it is possible to buy local or
regional advertising slots from DirecTV and DISH, they have done that too.

It would seem that listening to Clear Channel would only tend to melt
the brain into a mass resembling chocolate pudding.....

It's not a Clear Channel thing. Commercials are just as annoying on everyone
else's broadcast channels too. And while there are a few truly innovative,
entertaining or thought-provoking ad campaigns, most of them just... suck.

--
JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services
22674 Motnocab Road * Apple Valley, CA 92307-1950
Steve Sobol, Geek In Charge * 888.480.4NET (4638) *

On 20 Dec 2003 02:49:11 GMT, Steven J Sobol
wrote:

Larry W4CSC wrote:
How can ANYONE'S IQ increase listening to 40 minutes of REPEATING
commercials an hour?

But Larry, that's the whole point. Repetition is the key to getting people
to remember the commercial!

I guess I'm just too old to listen to radio any more. I download lots
of old shows off alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime that have FOUR
commercials in them, smoothly integrated right into the show itself so
you don't actually realize Glenn Miller is selling you a Philco until
it's almost over...(c;

Oh, well, all the BBC stations are live on the net and archived so I
don't miss my favs. I emailed them and offered to pay my radio tax to
do my part because I'm on their servers quite often. That shook 'em
up. They refused my offer but appreciated the thought.

I listen to a 4 minute snippet of some talking head on news/talk, then
when the 8 minutes of spots comes on I turn it back off and go back to
my MP3 player. Radio is the reason for the MP3 explosion.


Larry W4CSC

NNNN

In article , Larry W4CSC wrote:
I listen to a 4 minute snippet of some talking head on news/talk, then
when the 8 minutes of spots comes on I turn it back off and go back to

That is a good question for the radio programmers on this newsgroup.

Why is the spotload so heavy? Breaks on talk stations like WABC used
to be three or four commercials. Now it's more.

All news WCBS used to tout that it only played one commercial at a
time between news capsules. Now they sometimes play two.

WINS sometimes plays three in a row when they used to do one or two
spots about 8 years ago (pre all this consolidation).

Infinity some years back made all their stations up the spot loads.

Ditto, why cluster all the spots in 10 minute sweeps twice an hour
instead of breaking them up into frequent two or three minute breaks
so it SEEMS like less commercials are being played?

--
Sven Weil
New York City, U.S.A.

Sven Franklyn Weil wrote:
Ditto, why cluster all the spots in 10 minute sweeps twice an hour
instead of breaking them up into frequent two or three minute breaks
so it SEEMS like less commercials are being played?

That's the part that confuses me. We've got music stations that
announce "coming up next -- 9 in a row". They mean 9 songs, but if you
listen often enough you quickly learn that also means 9 minutes of
advertising [0] - i.e., that announcement is your cue to change stations...

I suppose since the ratings don't show whether someone was listening
during the ads - only that they were listening - that if clumping the
spot load increases the numbers the rest of the hour it makes short-term
economic sense. One just has to wonder what will happen when the
advertisers start finding they get a smaller increase in sales per
thousand "ears" bought?

(indeed I note the station in the bad example above has begun to promote
"fewer commercials, more music" and indeed appears to have broken up
their spot load across the hour)
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com
[0] not 100% certain I'm exaggerating!

Doug Smith W9WI wrote in
:

Sven Franklyn Weil wrote:
Ditto, why cluster all the spots in 10 minute sweeps twice an hour
instead of breaking them up into frequent two or three minute breaks
so it SEEMS like less commercials are being played?

Isn't the point to increase "Time Spent Listening" to be full 15 minute
blocks so the station gets credit for that? If you run two 10 minute
breaks, you can have 20 minutes of programming between them gaining 40
minutes Time Spent Listening over the course of the hour assuming one
comes back after the commercials.

If you had only 5-10 minute blocks of programming with commericlas in
between, you would never get the 15 minute blocks of Time Spent
Listening that radio stations seem to want.

Am I correct on this or way off?

Mike

"M. Hale" wrote in message

Isn't the point to increase "Time Spent Listening" to be full 15 minute
blocks so the station gets credit for that? If you run two 10 minute
breaks, you can have 20 minutes of programming between them gaining 40
minutes Time Spent Listening over the course of the hour assuming one
comes back after the commercials.

If a person listens form 5:55 to 6:20, the station gets 45 minutes of
credit.

Credit is given for 15 minutes as long as the listener has 5 minutes or more
of recorded listening in any quarter hour.

There is no way to get "40 minutes" of credit as the system is based on
quarter hours.

If you had only 5-10 minute blocks of programming with commericlas in
between, you would never get the 15 minute blocks of Time Spent
Listening that radio stations seem to want.

You only need 5 minutes to get credit for a quarter hour. However, few
listeners are so precise, most writing down hour and half hour blocks.

On 22 Dec 2003 17:53:52 GMT, "M. Hale"
wrote:

Isn't the point to increase "Time Spent Listening" to be full 15 minute
blocks so the station gets credit for that? If you run two 10 minute
breaks, you can have 20 minutes of programming between them gaining 40
minutes Time Spent Listening over the course of the hour assuming one
comes back after the commercials.

Part of it is to get 2 quarter hours before listeners tune away. In
the case of the limited number of breaks, "research has shown" that
listeners are more aware of the number of elements than they are of
their length. A :60 is perceived the same as a :30. Each is an
element.

The hope is that listeners will perceive fewer elements in a limited
number of breaks than they would with more breaks with fewer spots.

When the breaks were 5 minutes it was tolerable. Now that the spots
seem to outnumber the songs, listeners are wearing out their radio's
presets. Especially young listeners. I have a couple of my young
nieces and nephews visiting. Not only do they change stations when a
single song they don't like plays, they immediately change stations
when a break begins. I thank MTV for creating generations with 3
second attention spans.

I asked why. They said "it'll be a long time before the music starts
again."

That's not something a programmer wants to hear.

Both radio and TV are so riddled with clutter that it amazes me anyone
stays tuned. Listen to your favorite station for an hour. Write down
every time a new element begins. Music, news, spots, promos, jingles
and jock chatter each constitutes an element.

TV has taken clutter to awesome heights, both aural and visual.
Vitually every channel has a "bug" supered over all but commercials.
Annoying as hell. During shows there's a crawl or a super about an
upcoming show. Crawls used to be used only for emergency information.
I can only imagine the anger of a movie director when he sees his
masterpiece splattered with material that destroys the mood he tried
to create. Often one super overlaps another.

Rich

That's the part that confuses me. We've got music stations that
announce "coming up next --

That's when I tune out. Once they say "coming up" that tells you that
what's really coming up is a truckload of commercials and mindless promos.
Listeners know that. Stations that do this are telegraphing their stopsets.

Paul Jensen
Florida's Emerald Coast

"Sven Franklyn Weil" wrote in message
...


Ditto, why cluster all the spots in 10 minute sweeps twice an hour
instead of breaking them up into frequent two or three minute breaks
so it SEEMS like less commercials are being played?

Tons of research has been done on this, and fewer stops create far less tune
out. Generally, tune out occurs in the first spot, so there is no
disadvantage to running many at a time.

In general, stations that went to fewer stops have increased ratings while
those adding more have gone down in ratings.

The "never more than a minute from music" sounded good, but did not work.