The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » CFRB - And Radio

RadioActive · November 30, 2023 8:13 am

I know I've posted on this before, but what I heard Thursday morning was so ridiculous, I just have to say it again. Who is it at radio stations that schedules so many commercials in a row that it chases away listeners?

I was in that sort of half asleep-half awake state early in the morning, and turned on the radio. It happened to be on NT1010. John Moore promoted something coming up next that I've already forgotten, possibly because I never heard it. But at the time, I tried to listen.

And that's when it started. One spot after another after another after another after another after another after another after another after another after another. There were so many - at least 5 minutes or more - it actually woke me up completely, thinking, "wait, I'm not going to listen to this anymore."

Imagine for a moment if you were in your car, fully awake and that was what you were hearing. You'd simply reach for the button after about the fourth one (and maybe not even that long) and go somewhere else.

I have never understood this. Of course, radio, already in a precarious financial state, needs paid commercials to survive - they pay the bills, and I'm sure it's great when they sell out the time. But can't they stagger these breaks better? Maybe two or three minutes in a row max.

Unless you're paralyzed and can't reach the dial or it's on in the background and you're not really paying attention to the noise, no one is going to sit through that many ads. No one. Not when it's so easy to go somewhere else.

The industry is already in trouble. To those in charge: stop this! The ratings are bad enough. This will only make things worse.

When endless commercials are enough to actually wake someone up to full consciousness to turn it off, you know there are too many in a row!

Shorty Wave · November 30, 2023 8:31 am

Their longest commercial breaks are on the half hour. I timed one break at 7 minutes a few weeks back during Jim Richards’ show.

RadioActive · November 30, 2023 8:34 am

I can't think of anyone who would sit through that. Why don't they understand that it's a tune out? You can schedule as many spots in a row as you want, but they're not very effective if no one is there to hear them.

RadioAaron · November 30, 2023 11:42 am

They're cashing out.

darcyh · November 30, 2023 11:47 am

CFPL 980 London does this too. And they are all revenue producing commercials (versus PSA's). Yet it is claimed AM stations cannot make money. Hard to understand.

RadioAaron · November 30, 2023 11:52 am

darcyh wrote:
CFPL 980 London does this too. And they are all revenue producing commercials (versus PSA's). Yet it is claimed AM stations cannot make money. Hard to understand.

The rates are incredibly low.

DaCosta · November 30, 2023 2:15 pm

I don't care about the ads per se but all day long on 1010 an ad will start, get cut off with another ad and then resume after the second ad has aired. I thought this might be a bit of a glitch but it happens constantly. For instance, 2 seconds of an ad gets interrupted by a CRAVE ad then back to the 1st ad. Drives me a bit mental.

newsguy1 · November 30, 2023 2:33 pm

And of course don't forget the repetitiousness.
Spence Diamonds, Van Rijk jewelers Kars for Kidz Coast Appliances and on and on... and my new pet peeve ad, the Subaru spot where a woman yells aerobic instructions (by the way have you ever heard a real instructor yell out "alright everybody step up and down!"
Yes if you are on a step machine you will step up and down.

peter · November 30, 2023 2:38 pm

Solution = Don't listen to the 1% share station.......SIMPLE

RadioActive · November 30, 2023 2:58 pm

newsguy1 wrote:
And of course don't forget the repetitiousness.
Spence Diamonds, Van Rijk jewelers Kars for Kidz Coast Appliances and on and on... and my new pet peeve ad, the Subaru spot where a woman yells aerobic instructions (by the way have you ever heard a real instructor yell out "alright everybody step up and down!"
Yes if you are on a step machine you will step up and down.

Boy, do I agree with you on that horrible Subaru spot. It's so bad, I will refuse to ever buy one of their cars, it's bugged me so much. The worst of the worst.

But let's not forget the idiot confessing to a therapy group about being jealous of his neighbour in that Rona ad. The tag "your neighbour is going to be jealous," is equally irritating. Who cares what your neighbour thinks about anything? If this is your pre-occupation, you have a lot more serious problems than a renovation!

And as newsguy1 points out, the fact it plays on endlessly - every spot break - makes it unbearable.

Walter · November 30, 2023 3:45 pm

RadioActive wrote:
newsguy1 wrote:
And of course don't forget the repetitiousness.
Spence Diamonds, Van Rijk jewelers Kars for Kidz Coast Appliances and on and on... and my new pet peeve ad, the Subaru spot where a woman yells aerobic instructions (by the way have you ever heard a real instructor yell out "alright everybody step up and down!"
Yes if you are on a step machine you will step up and down.

Boy, do I agree with you on that horrible Subaru spot. It's so bad, I will refuse to ever buy one of their cars, it's bugged me so much. The worst of the worst.

But let's not forget the idiot confessing to a therapy group about being jealous of his neighbour in that Rona ad. The tag "your neighbour is going to be jealous," is equally irritating. Who cares what your neighbour thinks about anything? If this is your pre-occupation, you have a lot more serious problems than a renovation!

And as newsguy1 points out, the fact it plays on endlessly - every spot break - makes it unbearable.

That Subaru ad is awful, but their other spot with the 'Winnie the Pooh' voiced guy whining that 'Nobody told me about the singing' is even worse. Getting pretty sick of the guy trying to get rid of the 'Stephen King' mattress, too.

Hansa · November 30, 2023 5:52 pm

This brings back memories of Michael Coren (in his right wing radio host stage) promoting Auto Depot incessently until that firm crashed and burned in some sort of scandal.

RadioAaron · November 30, 2023 7:05 pm

DaCosta wrote:
I don't care about the ads per se but all day long on 1010 an ad will start, get cut off with another ad and then resume after the second ad has aired. I thought this might be a bit of a glitch but it happens constantly. For instance, 2 seconds of an ad gets interrupted by a CRAVE ad then back to the 1st ad. Drives me a bit mental.

I'll assume this is on the stream? They're experimenting with customizing ad breaks within streams. I've heard the same glitch on 1050's stream.

paterson1 · November 30, 2023 8:03 pm

RadioAaron wrote:
darcyh wrote:
CFPL 980 London does this too. And they are all revenue producing commercials (versus PSA's). Yet it is claimed AM stations cannot make money. Hard to understand.

The rates are incredibly low.

They should raise the rates a little then. Five to seven minutes of commercials is not serving either the listener or advertiser, especially on music stations.

Capricasix · November 30, 2023 8:03 pm

Hansa wrote:
This brings back memories of Michael Coren (in his right wing radio host stage) promoting Auto Depot incessently until that firm crashed and burned in some sort of scandal.

I was stunned when I ran across his Twitter feed several years ago and discovered that he’d done a complete 180 from those days! I remember being so tired of those Auto Depot ads 😄

RadioAaron · November 30, 2023 8:22 pm

paterson1 wrote:
RadioAaron wrote:
darcyh wrote:
CFPL 980 London does this too. And they are all revenue producing commercials (versus PSA's). Yet it is claimed AM stations cannot make money. Hard to understand.

The rates are incredibly low.
They should raise the rates a little then. Five to seven minutes of commercials is not serving either the listener or advertiser, especially on music stations.

They don't have control over that for the most part. There's a standard Cost-per-point calculation.

kevjo · November 30, 2023 9:08 pm

Shorty Wave wrote:
Their longest commercial breaks are on the half hour. I timed one break at 7 minutes a few weeks back during Jim Richards’ show.

This is far from being unique to one or two stations. All across the dial you can hear lengthy commercial breaks and usually all around the same time. Somehow the consultants have determined that two lengthy breaks per hour are less of a tune out than more frequent shorter breaks.
In the case of talk radio it may also be that they don't want too many interruptions to the flow of conversation but it can also interrupt the flow if they don't return for more than 5 minutes.
Several years ago Q-107 went with multiple 2-minute breaks per hour and it seemed to work for quite some time. In the case of music stations this could still be a viable option. That said, there is no easy resolution to it.

Tomas Barlow · December 1, 2023 2:30 am

kevjo wrote:
Shorty Wave wrote:
Their longest commercial breaks are on the half hour. I timed one break at 7 minutes a few weeks back during Jim Richards’ show.
This is far from being unique to one or two stations. All across the dial you can hear lengthy commercial breaks and usually all around the same time. Somehow the consultants have determined that two lengthy breaks per hour are less of a tune out than more frequent shorter breaks.
In the case of talk radio it may also be that they don't want too many interruptions to the flow of conversation but it can also interrupt the flow if they don't return for more than 5 minutes.
Several years ago Q-107 went with multiple 2-minute breaks per hour and it seemed to work for quite some time. In the case of music stations this could still be a viable option. That said, there is no easy resolution to it.

I think someone told me that the listener perception was that Q was always playing commercials even though the breaks were only two minutes long so they ended it. But agree with you, shorter is better. 680 plays plenty of commercials but they feel less intrusive than they do on CFRB.

betaylored · December 1, 2023 4:13 pm

newsguy1 wrote:
And of course don't forget the repetitiousness.
Spence Diamonds, Van Rijk jewelers Kars for Kidz Coast Appliances and on and on... and my new pet peeve ad, the Subaru spot where a woman yells aerobic instructions (by the way have you ever heard a real instructor yell out "alright everybody step up and down!"
Yes if you are on a step machine you will step up and down.

spot on Subaru observation, and she does a pretty poor job pronouncing the punchline word "Park!", it sounds like she's actually yelling "Pork!" Her timing is off and they picked the wrong music bed. It's so Pelowrong.

I don't get why these ads are so consistently dreadful, are the production studios booking too many jobs, or hiring the cheapest talent, there's got to be a reason...

Last edited by betaylored (December 1, 2023 4:17 pm)

echomaster · December 28, 2023 10:22 pm

Interesting - rather than the terribly bland Toronto radio stream the other stuff, Blaze Radio Network, Talk Right radio, WRKO in Boston, WABC in NYC - bounce around - tons available now, no need to listen to paint dry locally

mace · December 29, 2023 10:32 am

Too bad there isn't anyone around today like the late legendary Dick Orkin to produce entertaining and incredibly funny ads.