I found this article on Broadcasting on the Yahoo! board:
nypost.com
THEY'RE NOT LISTENING!
By JOHN MAINELLI
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ALL those extra commercials on the radio may be taking their toll.
A new report says the average number of people listening to radio has
dropped 12 percent in the last decade -- and the pace is picking up
speed.
An unprecedented 3 percent drop in radio listenership was charted in
the past year -- the biggest single-year decline ever.
"I don't think the [radio] industry is going to do anything about
this until the advertisers revolt," said report author Jim Duncan
of Duncan's American Radio at a PaineWebber Media Conference this
week in New York.
"The problem is that companies are maximizing profits at each station,"
said Duncan.
"No one seems to care," he said. "The radio executives seem not to
worry about it, except for a few programming types."
Duncan said even advertisers whose commercials are now running in
breaks as long as 10 minutes -- and up to 16 minutes in the top-rated
Howard Stern show -- "seem not to complain."
But The Post found some who did.
"As an advertiser and a listener, [commercial clutter] has become very
self-evident and very distracting," said Mark Lefkowitz of the Furman
Roth ad agency. "You can tune in for 10 minutes and hear nothing but
commercials on a number of stations in New York."
"As a listener, the dot-com commercials are driving me crazy," said
Bill Frees of Frees Media. "There's so much money coming into the
business that stations are taking advantage of it and playing far
too many commercials. It's taking a toll on the listeners."
"It's obvious that there's a lot of clutter and a lot of [commercials],
especially this time of year," said Darren Yelin of TD Advertising.
Another reason people might be deserting radio is that it keeps
pumping out the same old same old, Yelin believes.
"Music programming has become dull and boring and a lot of stations
are playing the same music," he said.
Research guru Jim Duncan, who also complained about "non-innovative"
programming in recent years, warned that today's revenue-crazed radio
giants are facing imminent threats from satellite radio as well as
proposals to allow new low-power FM stations in several cities
(though not New York).
Still, old-fashioned radio is still far from its death throes.
"No matter what happens, radio and broadcast TV are still the
primary media for advertising if you want to hit people, especially
in New York," said JL Media's Kenny Konstantin. |
