Empower Studies Radio Ad Clutter

Empower

EMPOWER MEDIAMARKETING has conducted an analysis of radio advertising clutter in 15 markets -- the top 14 markets plus the agency's home market of CINCINNATI -- and identified the most and least cluttered locales and station formats. Among the findings: 

* Some 93 CLEAR CHANNEL stations averaged 7.99 minutes of commercial time per hour -- 15% below the 15-market average of 9.42 minutes. The same CLEAR CHANNEL stations averaged 1.78 minutes of advertising per commercial pod, which was 18% below the 15-market average of 2.18.

Our belief as an agency is that radio is generally undervalued, particularly by national advertisers

* The most cluttered markets were WASHINGTON, DC (10.25 commercial minutes per hour) and LOS ANGELES (10.15). The least cluttered were TAMPA (8.43), ATLANTA (8.83) and PHILADELPHIA (8.84).

* The most cluttered formats were News/Talk (11.91 commercial minutes per hour) and Sports (11.47), and the least cluttered were Classical (6.81) and Religious (7.78).

According to EMPOWER Sr. VP/Research JULIE PAHUTSKI, "What’s interesting to us is that there is a perception of radio as being a very cluttered medium, yet the average number of commercial minutes per hour is less than that of television, which averages 12-14 minutes, and radio’s environment is less cluttered than, say, magazines, whose pages typically are about 50% advertising. Our belief as an agency is that radio is generally undervalued, particularly by national advertisers."

The analysis was based on MAY 2006 NIELSEN MONITOR PLUS data.

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