Radio Advert Research - 1

A Brief History of Radio Advertisement
Radio broadcasts began in the early 1900s. As radio stations began to constantly broadcast, which happened around 1919, station owners realised that it was starting to cost them a lot of money and a lot more than they expected. In 1922, an announcement was made to sell "toll broadcasting" to advertisers; This helped businesses dramatically and it became a popular way of advertisement. Soon, advertisers sponsored whole radio programmes with a message of "We thank our sponsors for making this programme possible" either at the end or beginning of the programme.

A typical daytime line-up for a radio station's shows will be:
6am - 10am. 10am - 3pm. 3pm - 7pm. 7pm til midnight.
Mornings and evenings when people are commuting to and from work, are considered to be the most popular and are known as "Drivetimes".

Cost
The cost of advertising on the radio can vary on several factors including:
- the time of day
- the length of the advert
- the season
- the radio station
- the length of the campaign
- the campaign frequency
- the type of advertising.
The cost of the advert shouldn't be no more than 10% of the original budget, which will include the actors hired, the script-writers and music/sound effects. For small stations it can be anything from or around £250, whilst for the more popular stations it can be anything from and over £2,000. For a large-sized regional radio station, a radio station could charge £1,000 a week.
(the above information was taken from this website).
However, different radio stations - pending on popularity - can vary their costs dramatically. Unlike print media, radio stations have a limited amount of time and slots for advertisements which restricts them to how many they can have a day.

Length
The average estimate for the amount of radio adverts per hour totals to 9minutes or air time. 60second slots for adverts are the most common, however radio does sell radio adverts within 2,10, 15 and 30 second slots. Most adverts nowadays last for approximately 40 seconds.

Facts and Figures
- 95% of people listen to the radio every week
- 92% of listeners remain tuned in for the adverts
- 6.9% of total media expenditures are spent on radio adverts
(most of this information was taken from wiki).


If it was a real radio advertisement, I would probably choose to pay for a radio station for a 30 second slot during the evening. This would ensure that it would be heard at a popular time and by having it at night rather than the morning, the listener would be able to remember it more and possibly tell other people when they get home. I decided to choose 30 second slot as it would be cheaper but also would give me enough time to advertise the key points of the film. Another decision would be to use a campaign and have the advert playing every evening for 2 weeks before the due date, this would mean that I would get more for my money as radio stations are known to make deals for consistent adverts on their station.