Re: Commercials 103.3

[Dave Faneuf <tklaundry@juno.com>]

On Sun, 29 Sep 2002 16:07:04 -0700 (PDT) Dan Billings
<billingsdan@yahoo.com> > 
> In my personal experience, the worst examples of
> management whoring the station and filling it up with
> commercials was by non-corporate local owners. 

I don't know how old you are, or how long you have been in the business,
but I do recall that the industry had broadcast standards at one time
that limited commercial spots to 18 to 21 minutes an hour.  Most stations
tried to get to the 21 minutes an hour limit.  Everybody adhered to the
broadcast standards.

>The one publicly owned radio corporation that I worked for
> had standards regarding the number of spots per hour
> that were almost always followed.  I did notice some
> exceptions when the station was falling short of goals
> at the end of the quarter, but those situations were
> the exception to the general rule.  

I worked for the old CBS (pre- Westinghouse/ARS/Infinity etc etc etc) and
there were very strict standards in place regarding the number of units
an hour we ran. IIRC it was 11or so.  They were always followed. (and
goes to the heart of the original posting)

>Smart companies know that in the long run, they are better off with a
> relatively fixed level of inventory and higher rates
> when demand increases.

Not many of them around now....like I said, makes bashing corporate radio
pretty easy
df