Looking for honest answers on this

[Rob Landry]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2014, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> Isn't it possible that the clumping of spots that the industry has been 
> doing for the last thirty years has made listeners hyper-aware of the 
> advertising?

That is, after all, the goal of commercial radio: to get people to listen 
to the ads.

At WCRB about a decade ago we commissioned a series of focus groups and 
telephone surveys; one of the things we needed to find out was how much of 
a tune-out commercials were. We found out that WCRB listeners did not 
really have a problem with commercials (public radio-style fundraising 
pitches, on the other hand, were detested), and at WCRB, we ran three 
stopsets an hour in most hours.

Mind you, this was a decade ago, and these were older folks who had grown 
up listening to commercials on the radio. But my gut feeling is that even 
today, long stopsets are not a big deal for most listeners.


Rob