On a slightly different bent, its funny how the PSAs on KFI's internet feed seem to fly in the face of KFI's libertarian audience (my take). Really bad government produced PSAs funded with money that could be spent better elsewhere.
A lot of PSAs are produced and distributed by groups like the Ad Council. Even those that are not don't cost anything more than the production costs. Stations run them free, of course.
KFI is hardly libertarian (which I take to mean fiscally conservative and socially liberal). The station leans conservative... very conservative for CA.
Between the awful commercial switching on the web feed and the mentally painful repetition of spots that have little to do with the KFI audience, I thin no one at the station ever listens to it.
The web feed, like all larger market feeds, is the victim of the poorly-reasoned AFTRA contracts of recent years which charge the client (agencies, mostly) more money for talent fees if a radio commercial also runs on the internet; no mind that radio needs to move to other distribution channels... AFTRA has dug in and would rather see radio killed, and encourage the existing model to expand into new channels (which is less disruptive to the talent market than forcing a whole new model).
So, stations have to remove from the stream all spots with AFTRA talent per the requirements of the advertisers. And they use a computer to insert PSAs and whatever other fill they can find.
First, Libertarians are basically in favor of small government and greater personal freedom so though KFI's hosts for the most part could fit somewhere in that spectrum they tend more conservative in their rhetoric. As a benchmark both Glenn Beck and Neal Boortz claim to be Libertarians but their tone is vastly different on air. I think Handel is probably Libertarian while John and Ken are just showmen. Suits is abysmal no matter where you place him on the political spectrum and Rush is a right wing nutcase. I am not sure where you place George Noory but out of this world comes to mind. KFI lost their only clearly conservative local host when they cut Ziegler loose.
Second, I agree with you on the AFTRA stand. Eventually producers of spots will move to non AFTRA talent, some stations I listen to online have already done so for local commercials and thus can run them on the stream. The problem there is that someone in Kansas wouldn't go to a store in Ohio so this isn't good for the advertisers.
On a slightly different bent, its funny how the PSAs on KFI's internet feed seem to fly in the face of KFI's libertarian audience (my take). Really bad government produced PSAs funded with money that could be spent better elsewhere. Examples: "Ouch. Down. Slow. You can rearrange any of these to tell your friend they're driving recklessly", "Teacher: How does Becky take the bus, get her pregnancy counseling and make it to home room by 7:30?", or "Go to a website to register to win $1,000 to find a career (CA program)".
Between the awful commercial switching on the web feed and the mentally painful repetition of spots that have little to do with the KFI audience, I thin no one at the station ever listens to it.
KFI, contrary to the poster who said their online commercials have nothing to do with the audience, in my opinion they do as they tend to businesses who are marketing to computer users. So spots for businesses such as Carbonite, Got To My PC make perfect sense for streaming audiences. More stations should market that way. The PSA's can be a bit different but I think they take from what they have available. A station I listen to from Ohio to hear Glenn Beck runs annoying snippets of Classical Music to fill the gaps or some broadcasters just go silent. The silent ones make me think I've been dropped and I go always to reconnect just as the program resumes. So I'd rather have noise coming out than dead silence.
Their switching is actually pretty good. As someone with experience in local cable ad insertion I understand the glitches. Few 30 second or 60 second ads actually time out exactly (in the digital realm). When you are covering material from another source you get clipped off on the long ones or you get a snippet of the base feed if you are short. On KFI however they do have a kind of random cut off of the initial banner ad that appears when you first log in. A lot of other than streamers just play the entire spiel before letting you get to their on air programming.
