Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
June 27, 2000, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: STYLE; Pg. C01; THE RADIO LISTENER
LENGTH: 1109 words
HEADLINE:
Hitting the Spot: Commercials That Really Turn Us Off
BYLINE: Frank Ahrens, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
Today, The Listener strikes back.
Sick and tired of all the terrifically awful commercials on radio, your humble
radio columnist launches a new feature: Punch It Out! Every two weeks, The
Listener staff will harvest the airwaves for annoying, offensive and downright
unlistenable ads. (In the foreign correspondent's realm, this would be known as
a "hardship post," which bumps the unfortunate sod up a few pay grades.) After
judging the dreck, we will spotlight a commercial that deserves to be
exterminated by punching to one of the other stations on your radio.
It
was tough to pick an inaugural winner--there are so many deserving
candidates--but the first Punchie goes to a Nikon camera ad, which I've heard
most frequently on all-news WTOP (1500 AM). The premise is a father using a
Nikon to photograph his son's baseball game. It begins with the dad screaming,
"Okay, son . . . !!" His voice is more annoying than the over-amplified shrieks
of an angry dolphin.
For weeks, I had no idea what the product was
because as soon as I heard the guy's voice, I (a) nearly drove off the road and
(b) Punched It Out!
Sen. John McCain endured five years of Viet Cong
torture, but I bet he'd cave after 30 seconds of this ad. I listened to the
entire commercial only once--to write this--and it will be the last time.
It's not just The Listener who's increasingly disturbed by
commercials--not just how they sound, but their quantity. I hear the same from
other listeners all the time. Most radio conferences I attend include at least
one hand-wringing seminar on commercials, with the central issue boiling down
to: How far can we push the listener? How much of each hour can we eat up with
ads before listeners switch us off for good?
Right now, the number
appears to be about 28. That's how many minutes per radio hour can be filled
with commercials before research suggests listeners will switch off. That's the
extreme example; most stations hover in the 18-to-22-minute range. Some stations
disperse those minutes throughout the hour; others bunch them into what are
known as "stop sets." Howard Stern's show, for instance, may have a six- or
eight-minute stop set at the top of each hour, and shorter stop sets throughout
the hour.
The stations are under tremendous pressure to make money in
this era of consolidation. A local program director once flatly told me: "It's
all about Wall Street." Because most radio stations are now owned by publicly
held companies, the obligation to shareholders is to keep making money. Fair
enough. But consolidation has driven up station prices--if a chain pays $ 100
million for an FM station, that's a lot of debt to service. So stations are
forced to make money more imaginatively. For instance, most commercials are
currently 30 or 60 seconds long. But soon you'll be hearing 15- and 20-second
spots, priced nearly the same as a 30-second ad, so stations can squeeze more
commercials into an hour.
Businesses will keep coughing up the cash
because radio is an advertising bargain compared with newspapers, television and
the Internet--even at $ 350 to $ 1,000 per 30 seconds, the going rate range in
the Washington market. And as stations continue to niche-target their music and
talk programs--aiming at, for instance, at-work females between 25 and 54--radio
can promise specific audiences that advertisers crave. Last year the radio
industry billed a record $ 16 billion in advertising.
Many radio
stations, then, find themselves overbooked with ads, so they need a way to
shoehorn them in.
So they invent shady methods for making money.
Last fall, Rush Limbaugh's listeners in New York noticed more
commercials on his show. It turned out that the station carrying him there,
WABC, was using a digital software program called Cash, which removes pauses
from the spoken word, compressing speech. With such squeezes, Cash can turn an
hour's worth of Limbaugh's polemics (delivered with a few minutes' delay) into a
57-minute screed, clearing space for three more minutes of ads.
Have you
had enough?
Are you outraged?
Do you want to send a message to
stations that air annoying ads?
Then Punch It Out!
(Got a
suggestion? Send it to ahrensf@washpost.com.)
Exit Grousing
It's been two weeks since comedian George Wallace suddenly quit the Les
Brown morning show on black oldies WMMJ (102.3 FM), and still no word on whether
he'll be replaced. The stand-up comedian, who has toured with Jerry Seinfeld,
surprised the morning crew by quitting on-air. He thanked the audience but
criticized the station and its owner, Radio One, for "unprofessional" behavior.
It sounded like a classic radio publicity stunt. But the Les Brown crew
says it was not. Wallace could not be reached to elaborate on his remarks.
Wallace told the Washington Afro-American that he would be returning to the
comedy circuit. Calls to WMMJ yesterday were not returned.
The "Majic
102.3" morning show has had some successes: "We Remember," a regular feature
spotlighting classic R&B acts, produced by co-host T.C. Bandit (real name:
Sharon Pitt), has been syndicated by Dick Clark's network. But the morning
show--hosted by Brown, a motivational speaker--continues to lag in the ratings,
routinely getting thumped by its rivals at WHUR, WKYS and WPGC, and holding
about even with WJMO's Jam'n Oldies morning show. The Majic morning show dropped
from a 5.4 share a year ago to a 3.4 in the most recent Arbitron ratings report.
Low-Power Apps Arrive
More than 700 groups applied for
low-power FM radio licenses during the Federal Communication
Commission's first filing window, which ended earlier this month. A total of 722
applicants in 10 states, the District and the Mariana Islands territory hope to
operate low-power stations of up to 100 watts with broadcast distances of up to
about four miles.
Applying in the District were the Rev. Milton Pratt,
the Washington Health Forum Inc., the Mount Pleasant Broadcasting Club and the
Center for the Preservation of Jazz and Blues. If their applications are
approved, the stations could be on the air in a matter of months.
Or
not. There are two bills in the Senate that would affect the new stations if
enacted. One would kill the stations outright; the other would allow them to
exist, but subject to certain qualifications. The House has passed a bill that
would significantly curtail the stations. The White House favors the creation of
low-power FM.
Annoyed by ads? Radio? That dork
in the next cubicle? Log on to www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline today at 1 p.m.
to talk with The Listener. You'll feel better.
LOAD-DATE: June 27, 2000
