People don’t mind adverts as long they are about something they want to about hear/buy.

People don’t mind hearing the same song over and over again as long as it’s the song they want to hear.

People don’t mind listening to a DJ talk if he/she is telling them something that they talking about/interested in hearing an opinion.

And People don’t mind hearing lots of traffic/news as long as they are being told stories that effect them personally be it taxes or busy roads.

We programme radio stations for specific people/groups/tsa’s… if you don’t fall into the one a particular station is talking to then you won’t like it and turn over.

Moonie

That’s a posting about this posting of Matt’s responding to the posting of Frankie’s which was a response to another posting of Matt’s (I think I may eat myself)

If ads were such a turn-off, Capital’s reduction down to two ads in a row would have instantly transformed its output.

Don’t believe the hype. What Capital’s reduction down to two ads in a row did, of course, was increase the amount of interruptions for ads. Hardly a winning programming idea; and one which has, to the best of my knowledge, never demonstrably shown any listener-figure increase anywhere in the world.

While I agree with Steve’s point above, that the standard of many radio (and TV) ads are excreble – try http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/02/23/the-worst-tv-ad-this-week/ for a particularly good example – it doesn’t also tell the whole story; but that’s a blog post for me to make, not one to bolster yours!

Copyright somebody else whose name escapes me but who is probably a copywriter.

Clearly, the fact that people do listen to commercial radio in large numbers is undeniable (although I’d be interested to know the overlap between BBC and commercial radio reach – how many people are commercial radio refuseniks?)

Something that led me to my comment about the minimalistic commercial radio DJs was having recently heard Magic (in a cab I think) proudly announce ‘less chat, more music’. As it’s such a popular station, this seems to indicate that a major chunk of people want less DJ intervention and more nonstop music. Indeed, a few of my friends used to drive me incessantly mad by changing station everytime a DJ piped up, until they found one playing music again. This, combined with the popularity of big-name talent on R1 & R2 (and to a certain extent some of the big commercial brands too), suggests two diverging poles in the styles of radio: personality based ‘shows’ which you tune in specifically for, and devote more attention to, and music stations primarily listened to as the background to other activities (optimised for an average listening period, as you mention). Whilst both serve a purpose, I’d warrant that the latter is more vulnerable to displacement by music tv channels, iPods, and internet music streams.

This is intuition though, and not based on the detailed research you’ve digested.

As to traffic reports – you’re right that it’s the public-transport-using Londoner in me that finds them so alien. I never even understand most of the jargon and locations they mention…

Look forward to your next post!

Frankie