Commercial spot spacing in programming material
 

robert casey wrote:
Noticed when listening to old airchecks of Musicradio 77
WABC New York, that they played on average 2 songs, then
one long or two short commercials, than another 2 songs,
and another commercial, then 2 more songs, etc. This in
contrast to radio stations today playing a 40 minute block
of music and then 15 minutes of solid commercials. I
realize that commercials are necessary, but I find that
I'll accept one or two commercials before I start wanting
to hit the button on the car radio to bail to another
station. (I live in one market, and also can listen to
another station with a similar format in an adjacent
market area, and they time their stop sets at different
times of the hour). I don't know if this listener tolerance to
short stop sets has ever been tested. Or is the current
structure an artifact of the way ratings books are done?
That stations will sacrifice the last quarter hour for
solid 1,2, and 3rd quarters? Most commercials seem to
get played between XX:45 and the top of the hour.


I think the basic argument is that listeners change the station as soon
as a commercial comes on, so if you pile all the commercials into one
long slot, you wind up with listeners tuned to the station for a longer
time period at one crack. From the standpoint of an advertiser, this
should be considered a bad thing, but it results in better identification
with the listener.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."