How Many Ads Should A Radio Station Run? Cumulus Media | Westwood One And RAB Reveals Guidelines
The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) fields questions daily regarding research, best practices, promotional ideas, and more. One of the most frequently asked questions is, “How many ads should I run per week?” The answer always starts with, “That depends. What is your goal?”
Turnover is the audience metric that determines how many ads are needed to run on a radio station
Turnover is a ratio that’s calculated by dividing a radio station’s cume by its average quarter-hour audience. The cume refers to the number of different people reached by a station in a week.
The average quarter-hour audience is the number of people listening to a station in a typical fifteen-minute period. Think of the average quarter-hour audience as the number of people reached by one commercial.
Turnover is a ratio that represents the number of groups of people that make up a radio station’s audience. The greater the turnover, the more ads needed to reach the audience. Stations with high turnovers have lower time spent listening (TSL).
Stations with lower turnovers have higher time spent listening. Low turnover stations require fewer weekly ads to accomplish reach objectives.
There is no such thing as a good or bad turnover
You just need to know what it is. Turnover is a helpful ratio to understand how many commercials, promos, or song spins are needed to reach a station’s audience.
To determine the number of ads needed for a minimum/very light schedule, take half the turnover. For a maintenance/light schedule, use the turnover. For a high impact/medium schedule, double the turnover. For a launch/heavy weekly campaign, multiply the turnover by 3.4.
The number of ads needed to achieve each of the four levels of radio station reach vary by AM/FM radio programming format
In the attached chart, you can see how many ads are needed to run for each of the four campaigns for every AM/FM radio programming format. For example, while a Country station needs 47 ads run per week for a high impact campaign reaching 2/3 of the audience an average of 3 times, a Top 40 station needs 61 ads run per week to achieve the same campaign goal.
Agencies and sellers dramatically underestimate the number of ads needed to run the high impact and launch campaigns
An RAB study of 334 ad agencies and sellers asked how many weekly ads were needed to reach two-thirds (high impact) and 78% (launch) of a radio station’s audience. Responses revealed half of what is required!
Agencies perceived 33 weekly ads are needed to reach two-thirds of a station’s audience. In reality, an average of 51 weekly ads is required for the high impact campaign!
For some radio formats, up to 61 ads are needed to reach two-thirds of a station’s audience. Radio sellers also vastly misjudged the number of weekly ads needed to reach two-thirds of a station’s audience.
To reach 78% of a radio station’s audience, agencies estimated 46 weekly ads were necessary. In reality, over twice as many ads (102 spots weekly) are needed to achieve the launch campaign and reach 78% of a radio station’s audience.
Again, radio sellers were in the same boat, significantly underestimating the number of ads needed to reach 78% of a radio station’s audience.