Happy Friday, everyone!
This week’s poll question was prompted by a recent RadioInk article on a Seattle radio station’s announcement of “a ‘2-Minute Promise’ on Monday. The details of that promise are that the station, which, at times, was running two six-minute stopsets will now only run three two-minute commercial blocks every hour.”
So we’d like to hear from you:
How many spots per break, and how many breaks per hour, is “too many”?
Looking forward to reading your answers!
It depends on so many factors. There's various research to show that a break with many short ads sounds longer to the listener than the same length break with fewer ads.
I would say 6 minutes to 7 minutes per hour is going to be much better for the station and listeners than 12 minutes. People don't tune in to hear my ads, however good I THINK they are :-)
But by announcing "promise" on ads, aren't you just drawing the listener to to fact that you run ads?
Most programmers seem to favour 2 ad breaks an hour (again some research supports this in terms of listener retention... it was presented when I worked in the UK, but I'm sorry I can't remember the source).
I think many stations need to price their inventory much better to reduce ad clutter at key points. (How long will your breakfast show be No 1 in the market place if you're playing 15 minutes of commercials)
I worked at a station where at one point 6 to 8 minute breaks were the norm! Three and sometimes four an hour!
Right now the station that I am the ops manager for runs three breaks each hour in morning drive, no longer than three minutes each with a live 30 sec weather at the end of each.
All other day parts it's two breaks and hour with 2 and a half minute breaks and the weather.
Give 'em the music they like and more of it, they'll stay through the break!
Here are my thoughts on the subject...happy reading! http://www.theradiopeople.co.uk
In part, it depends on the format, clearly New/Talk/Sports are different than music stations. That said, I prefer 2 beaks of four minutes, and a max of six units in each break.
What often gets overlooked, but is equally as important is the quality of the commercials! One of the best programming people ever taught me that in Radio there's music and not music and both are important. Stop sets with boring or loud and annoying commercials wll turn people off. Entertaining, or at least interesting and well produced spots will keep listteners tuned in (in more ways than one) !
