Long Commercial Breaks Are Chasing Away Young Listeners
93% of Listeners Stay Tuned In: This is the lead argument from the white paper. According to the study, “On average, radio holds more than 93% of its lead-in audience during commercial breaks.” However, look a little deeper and you’ll see that tune-in drops to 85% during breaks of six or more minutes in duration. Additionally, the study doesn’t address what portion of the 93% are new listeners added during the commercial break.
Spoken Word Formats Perform Best: No surprise here. Talk radio has always woven commercials into their format with less tune-out. According to the study, 99% of audience to spoken word formats stayed for commercial breaks.
Young Versus Old…”Houston We Have A Problem”: Older listeners are more tolerant of commercials. Baby boomers grew up listening to commercials and continue to be very loyal, even during longer commercial breaks. According to the study, among people 65+, 98% of the audience stays through commercials. However, 85% of 18-34 listeners survive spot breaks on music stations.
The Missing Data: If we want to get real there are a number of additional issues we need to research:
7+ Minute Stop Sets: The white paper conveniently doesn’t drill down into long ‘super sets’ that are regularly used on music stations. There’s lots of talk about averages but what is the impact of 7 minute plus stop sets on audience retention?
Impact on Advertisers: Last I looked, our advertisers are still paying the freight, right? Yet there’s no meaningful research into the impact of long stop sets on recall and ultimately response. I cringe when I hear one of these long stop sets. I really cringe when I hear a local, direct advertiser pulling up the ‘caboose’ of one of these 7+ minute monsters. These advertisers, many new to radio, are getting short changed by this placement.
At McQ Media, Inc we protect our advertisers from the damage of long stop sets by negotiating for specific spot placement and we will even buy around stations that run 7+ minute stop sets.
I love radio. As a former programmer, seller and GM, I’m rooting for radio to wake up and be objective about this issue. If we continue to parade around with the 93% spin and not address long stop set impact on advertisers, we’re just fooling ourselves and allowing a great industry to become less and less relevant to our listeners and advertisers.
Pete Thomson –
President/CEO –
McQ Media, Inc.
Great blog post. Although posted a few years ago, I would like to add a question and comment. Regarding ARB/Coleman report: Have you seen the full report data? Without the data but by modeling the highlights, commercial tune retention could be as low as 80% (music formats, non AM drive, and younger audiences. My bigger issue with the study is that the “average spot break was 3.5 minutes”. We all know this is impossible. There is something fishy here. But also, as you allude, the bigger issue with Radio advertising is that regardless of tuning retention, the mind cannot be engaged nor recall anything in a six minute commercial pod.