News network commercials

[local oscillator]

I was just reading the "Why LibTalk is floundering and ConTalk is moving to FM" thread and found it quite fascinating and suddenly very timely for requesting some input concerning a situation at our station.  First, some background.  We are a classic rock/hits station with an unusually strong local news commitment for a music station:  local and network news every hour -- twice per hour in drivetimes, local sports, weather, traffic, etc.  Our core demo is 35-54; our audience is approximately 55/45 women to men; our community is politically and socially conservative.  We had been an ABC Contemporary affiliate for decades when, several years ago, ABC pushed us into what would become ABC Direction.  We didn't like the idea of its pop-culture "direction" at the time, and due to competitive exclusivity we couldn't have (then or previously) ABC Information.  So, we jumped ship and went shopping.  CBS was unavailable, again due to competitive exclusivity.  As we are not interested in the minor players (no offense intended!) or generating the national/international news content ourselves, we had two options:  CNN and Fox.  We've always felt that the "liberal" and "conservative" images that networks have are derived from their TV siblings and don't really come into play all that much in short radio newscasts.  Both CNN and Fox could provide the content we wanted, but CNN's clock-hour and spot load worked better for us, so we went with CNN.  Of course, there was initial outrage that we had changed to a "liberal" network, but after a few days our listeners realized that the short CNN Radio newscasts were similar to the old ABC Contemporary newscasts and everything was fine . . . until the demise of CNN Radio at the end of last month.  So, we went with Fox beginning April 1.  Again, outrage from our more liberal listeners at just the mention of "Fox."  All else being equal, I expected the outrage to fizzle out quickly once they had a chance to hear the newscasts, and that probably would have happened if it weren't for something that I hadn't ever considered:  the commercials.  Many in our audience -- of all persuasions -- absolutely can't stand the Fox commercials, and I have to say that I hear what they're saying.  The usual fare of Geico, Wal-Mart, Ford, Applebee's, Home Depot, Kohl's, Progressive, Red Lobster, Lowe's, etc.  has been replaced by spots for extremely conservative organizations, firearms, senior citizen health supplements, gold, retirement financial advice, etc.  And, it seems that there are fewer spots running with much higher frequency.  In other words, spots for a wide range of goods and services that matched our audience well have been replaced by spots that don't match up so well -- even with conservatives (remember, these are conservatives who are listening to classic rock/hits radio, not conservative talk radio).  The Fox News Radio newscasts are fine, but the associated commercials are a negative on our music-based station and are becoming a major liability.  Something needs to give.  There is an outside chance that something may have changed with the ABC situation that may make ABC Information or Entertainment a possibility.  Short of that, we're painted into a corner.  Your comments, thoughts, and opinions will be much appreciated. 

[jh]

Do you run the entire network news every hour, or is a one-minute update enough?  We switched from ABC/E to the Fox one-minute service, which only requires 4 or 5 minutes of spots a day instead of a minute every hour.  I'm not sure what the spots are, they don't run with the newscasts and we bury them in spot breaks during music.

Of course you only get a one-minute cast each hour (at :45, repeated at :00) but you get access to their actuality website.  We added 2 or 3 Fox stories to our major newscasts to make up for the shorter network news.

[TheBigA]

The usual fare of Geico, Wal-Mart, Ford, Applebee's, Home Depot, Kohl's, Progressive, Red Lobster, Lowe's, etc.  has been replaced by spots for extremely conservative organizations, firearms, senior citizen health supplements, gold, retirement financial advice, etc. 

Yep...Fox is distributed by Premiere, which also syndicates Rush.  They've been hit hard by Rush's advertiser backlash.  

But a lot of news networks are carried on smaller AM stations.  That affects the quality of advertisers they get.  

[local oscillator]

jh, we do prefer more than the one minute updates, and I fear that the spots, although fewer in number, would be the same.  Now if we could run them at 3 a.m. . . . but unfortunately Fox has an affinity for M-F, 6A-7P.

BigA, I had thought that the Rush backlash only affected Premiere's conservative talk shows, but you're probably right.


Thanks. 

[borderblaster]

Since ABC doesn't ID its demographic networks on-air anymore i don't know the ac\vailability or differences. I hear one with the World News Tonight logo, and a peppier one without. There is the new NBC available now but I haven't heard them.

[PTBoardOp94]

I never really noticed the FNR network spots because there's the same type of reverse mortgage PIs on my conservatalker anyway.

ABC Entertainment is a two minute TOH 'cast with an outcue at 1:00.  ABC Information is a five minute TOH 'cast with an outcue at 2:00 and a minute of spots embedded after the first outcue.

[TheBigA]

Does AP Radio do top of hour newscasts anymore?  A lot of stations used to pay for them, rather than run net spots.

[local oscillator]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.  I think exploring possibilities with ABC is where I'm going to start. 

[EJM]

Since ABC doesn't ID its demographic networks on-air anymore i don't know the ac\vailability or differences. I hear one with the World News Tonight logo, and a peppier one without. There is the new NBC available now but I haven't heard them.

As far as ABC goes, I'm not positive that what's on the Cumulus Media Networks site (http://www.cumulusmedianetworks.com/article.asp?ID=341420) is the current lineup, but it looks like at least Information and the shorter "ABC News Now" (http://www.abcnewsnowradio.com) are still being produced, as the demo links for them go to current newscasts.

For NBC, I assume that the ad lineup would be essentially the same as what had been used for CNN Radio, since the new NBC is essentially taking its place.  However, I have heard at least one of its TOH newscasts (on WFED's stream) and was not impressed; at the very least, the one-minute breakaway (within the full two-minute segment) seemed jarring, since it's followed by the rest of the newscast (and not by a spot).

[EJM]

Does AP Radio do top of hour newscasts anymore?  A lot of stations used to pay for them, rather than run net spots.

I was assuming so, but now I'm not sure--considering that I don't see a mention of them on the new AP site (see http://www.ap.org/products-services/audio and http://www.ap.org/products-services/radio).