What about listeners?
The radio station Nova started broadcasting around the time I returned to Melbourne after working in the UK.
I chanced upon it in my brother in-law's car and was instantly struck by how few ads they ran.
This was a big deal to me as I can't stand radio ads. I really can't.
Not long after I went to Nova's first birthday bash where they made a big fuss out of the fact that they only played two ads in a row in an ad break.
Which I'm sure you can appreciate is about 5 less than the average FM station.
Today I learnt that Nova are dropping their two ad policy.
Why?
According to station executive Cathy O'Connor, "The move introduces flexibility," and it "will allow us to collaborate with advertisers and agencies in new ways."
But what about the listeners Cathy?
Did you ask them if they want more ads? I doubt it.
But then again since when did listeners ever really matter to radio stations?
Labels: advertising, nova, radio
posted by Stan Lee at 5:16 am
3 Comments:
Hey Stan,
I'm a copywriter at Nova. At the moment with Nova's 2 ads in a row there are more stop downs. The music and talk is interrupted frequently to fit in the number of ads required per hour.
But now with more ads in each break that means they can be less frequent, resulting in longer periods of music. So in that respect the listener wins.
cheers
I always thought that the scarcity of ads meant you could charge a premium for them. And that advertisers didn't get stuck with the unloved "ad in the middle".
And that's what we've been doing for the last nearly 10 years. But the reality is that while being one of two ads is a premium, not enough clients are willing to pay for it on a regular basis.
Like first class seats on Qantas planes, it's a better service but no one wants to pay so they ended up getting rid of first class to accomodate more economy seats.
There will still be 2 ad ad breaks in breakfast and drive, but now clients will need to specify and pay a premium if they want to be in those.
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