I understand that the FCC requires radio stations to state their call letters and some other information every so often. But that’s not the question.
Today, as I usually do, I was listening to AM talk radio. At one point, they said the whole station ID thing a full 3 times in well less than a minute! It went more or less like this:
[weather report or traffic or something]
You’re listening to WHIO AM 1290 and now 95.7 FM Dayton’s weather traffic and news station!
[New voice] Get your breaking news when it breaks only on WHIO AM 1290 and now 95.7 FM Dayton’s weather, traffic and news station!
[Voice of national talk show host] You’re listening to the XXX show on WHIO AM 1290 and now 95.7 Dayton’s weather, traffic and news station!
[then back to the program]
This is not verbatim, but pretty much the gist of the thing.
This happens all the time, and not just this station, it seems like every AM station I’ve listened to in several states.
Why?
I know that most of the ID snippets like the above are pre-recorded, but are they really that perpetually short on actual news, weather and traffic or even advertising that they need to just fill the silence by telling us who they are again and again?
Is there anybody in the business who can explain this to me? I’m pretty sure I know what station I’m tuned into by the numbers on the radio display, so is it really just “building brand recognition by beating it into my head”?
That’s very likely it. I frequently listen to WBBM, the news station here in Chicago. Every reporter signs off their reports with the call letters and frequency of the station, as well as the little promo bumpers which occasionally run between segments. Thus, you do hear it every few minutes, at a minimum.
Advertising revenue is determined by the Arbitron Ratings.
Arbitron Ratings are determined by listeners filling in diaries that show what they are listening to every 15 minutes. The radio station wants to make sure that every diary keeper who happens to tune in knows the correct thing to write in their diary (an to remind them to fill in those diaries). It is important that they write in something that the diary processors will recognize.
I know it is obnoxious. Our all-news station just got an FM simulcast and it was bad enough when they only gave one ID, now the double IDs are driving me crazy.
Especially these days when listeners frequently switch between stations or scan the disk or switch between media or access traditional broadcast stations through other sources like the Internet or Sirius XM, traditional broadcast stations are very focused on making sure that you know what you’re listening to, no matter how fast you surf through. And add to that that a lot of outlets are making segments available for listening individually so they want the station identification included with every segment.
FYI, Arbitron has started to shift to passive meters (the “Portable People Meter”), which pick up the radio broadcasts that panelists hear, and records the stations which the panelists are listening to without the panelists filling out a diary.
Another reason may be that the two stations are now owned by the same company and are broadcasting the same thing. It recently happened here in Kansas City, where KMBZ 980 (AM) acquired 98.1 (FM). The same programming is broadcast on both stations.
A station may repeat its ID several times to make the connection between the two bands (AM and FM, not Metallica and Queen :p).
Ahh, here in Canada it’s a requirement of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) that call letters are provided every so often.
I’m off to check…
Looks like once every half hour stations are required to give out call letters, location and frequency.
It’s late and I can’t find a reliable cite, but I’m going to guess it’s a regulatory issue in the States also.
The same thing recently happened here in Chicago; the aforementioned WBBM is now simulcast on FM. Their ID tags changed from “WBBM Newsradio 780” to the more cumbersome “WBBM Newsradio 780 AM and 105.9 FM”.
Yea, except for the fact that they jam in so much of that self-promotional crap that my mind tunes it out - out of sheer annoyance. I have no idea what station I am listening to most of them time.
I have always wondered when listeners call in to a radio station and they win something, the DJ asks them at the end:
“What station always makes you a winner?” and the caller correctly identifies it as “WXYZ, the Walrus! WooHoo!”
If I called in and was faced with that question, I would either completely get it wrong or just say something like “W mumble mumble mumble, the station that makes me a winner!”
IIRC, U.S. stations need to do so once an hour, at the top of the hour (or as close to it as programming makes feasible). As the OP noted, that’s not the issue…it’s all of the promotional mentions of the station’s name / frequency which go on beyond that mandatory station ID.
A lot of this happens when a station is running satellite or automated programming, and the timing from one segment to another gets screwed up. Here’s an example:
Program 1 ends at 58:50 after the hour. Program 2 starts at the top of the hour. The 1:10 between programs is supposed to be filled with a 30 second commercial, 30second announcement and 10 second ID.
However, the traffic department didn’t schedule a commercial, so the program computer fills the first space with the default placeholder, which happens to be a 10-second ID. Then the 30 second announcement actually turns out to last only 20 seconds, due to having been recorded by a minimum wage production assistant. It’s still not time for the scheduled ID, so the computer fills with another placeholder (another 10 second) ID, then another until the clock finally says it’s time for the scheduled 10-second ID.
In those situations, Og forbid you lose the satellite feed. The computer will play placeholders all day until a human being finally gets alerted and fixes it.
Radio professional here in the uk: ratings are based on a diary system submitted quarterly by a panel and those figures are extrapolated upwards. Since nobody’s going to carry their little diary around with them and especially won’t be filling it in when driving, radio stations take attribution very seriously. Nobody wants to lose GRPs (rating points) because they didn’t plug their station enough on air and they don’t get a tick in a diary because they were forgotten about. GRPs = £££s although the industry here is dominated by the BBC who account for 55% of radio listening.
The commercial networks tried to introduce an automated system using subliminal beeps but they tested it and it showed the BBC had an even bigger share. So they quietly ditched the idea!
It should be noted that on most stations, the promotional mentions do not meet legal requirements and can even outright lie about the station’s ID, as long as they get the one mention near the top of the hour formatted to legal standards.
Using the above-mentioned WBBM again, if you listen to their FM signal, three times every minute you will hear “Chicago’s all news station, WBBM Newsradio 780 and now 105.9 FM.” But at 57 minutes past each hour, you will hear an announcement played at double-speed with the announcer saying in hushed tones “WCFS-FM and HD1 Elmwood Park.” (They’ve made the announcement a little louder lately.) All hour they’ve been telling you that they are WBBM in Chicago, but they are really WCFS-FM in Elmwood Park. (The AM simulcast is on WBBM-AM Chicago.) There is a WBBM-FM and they are located at 96.3.
