New Data Illuminates Impact Of Going Commercial Free.

Story by Inside Radio

Commercial-free music sweeps have long been a tactic used by programmers to improve time spent listening and ratings performance. In an unusual twist, three, sometimes four radio stations in the nation’s No. 1 market run commercial free at the same time each weekday. How does this move the ratings needle in a PPM world? New data from Nielsen helps illuminate the subject.

Before you scurry down to the sales manager’s office with your new programming game-plan, there are several factors to take into consideration.

“The first thing I would tell people to do is to pick the right hours,” says Research Director Partner Charlie Sislen, who has helped programmers make sense of PPM data since the inception of metered measurement in 2008. “There are the no-brainer hours where people will say the first three hours of the workday. That might be right, but what I would do is look to see what hours are most important to the market, but more importantly, to my format group.”

The workday hours may make sense for popular at-work formats, such as AC, classic hits and the like. “If you are going to give up that valuable inventory and that valuable time, you better be picking hours that have really high listening for your format,” Sislen continues. “If you’re talking AC you may have five or six radio stations that are playing in that world. You don’t want to give up that inventory when there is nobody listening to AC radio. You want to give up that inventory to package it in when the pie of radio listeners for that format is really big.”

In the nation’s No. 1 market there are three, and sometimes four radio stations, that program commercial-free music sweeps as New Yorkers settle into their workday. Entercom classic hits WCBS-FM (101.1), hot AC sister “New 102.7” WNEW-FM (102.7) and iHeartMedia AC “106.7 Lite FM” WLTW all offer around three hours of commercial-free music sweeps to start off the workday. WNEW-FM and WCBS-FM put a stop to the stop sets at 9am each weekday, while WLTW gets a jump on the Entercom outlets as “Cubby & Christine” kick-off the “106.7 Lite FM” commercial-free music sweep at 8:15am. On Mondays these stations are joined by Entercom country WNSH (94.7), which is commercial free all-day beginning at 9am.

The results are “a bit of a mixed bag,” Jon Miller, VP, Audience Insights at Nielsen, tells Inside Radio. “With these four stations alone that we looked at, for a couple of them the audience goes down a little bit during commercial-free hours. For others, it’s building.”

Looking specifically at the hours each station is commercial free shows WLTW, which leads the market overall with an 8.0 share (6+) in the January 2020 ratings period, and WCBS-FM are experiencing some of the benefits of going commercial free.

Leading into its commercial free segment, WLTW had an AQH of 71,600 (6+) and 32,900 (Persons 25-54). During the first quarter hour of commercial free programming, that jumps to 81,900 (6+) and 42,300 (25-54). Commercial-free WLTW peaks with a 6+ AQH of 130,500 from 10:15-10:30am, while the 25-54 AQH peaks at 58,700 in the same quarter hour. WLTW sees an increase of 82% from its pre-commercial free AQH (6+) to its peak AQH while in the three-hour commercial free sweep. In the 25-54 demo the increase is 78%.

All numbers are provided by Nielsen for the January 2020 PPM ratings period.

WCBS-FM starts off the 9am hour with 72,200 6+ AQH and 28,300 in the money demo. Like “106.7 Lite FM,” CBS-FM also peaks in the 10am hour, posting a 6+ AQH of 78,700 and 31,500 25-54, both in the 10-10:15am quarter hour, for 9% and 11% increases from the pre-commercial free period to the peak AQH numbers, respectively.

“In New York people are in work at eight and by ten they are into their workday and they are not going to change the dial,” Sislen observes.

WNEW-FM rises from a 6+ AQH of 41,700, 25,000 25-54, prior to going commercial free. Those numbers climb to 46,500 6+ and 28,000 25-54 from 9-9:15am, its peak performance during the spotless sweep. WNSH’s Monday numbers ebb and flow throughout its daylong commercial free feature with an initial bump from 27,100 6+ AQH to 29,000 during the first quarter in the 9am hour. Its 25-54 numbers actually decline as commercial free Mondays kick off, moving from 19,200 to 14,200.

“We know that commercial free is one tool in the tool belt for driving listener engagement,” Miller says. “It’s not necessarily a silver bullet that is going to work every time.”

To help the cause, Sislen says “make sure that you are promoting it to your listeners, which is easy, but also promoting it within the marketplace. At least to your format competitors’ [audience] because you have to grow the pie.”

Outside of WNSH, which devotes a full day to the effort, the three other New York stations target the at-work audience, starting their commercial free music sweeps as listeners begin the day on the job. The goal is to retains the audience throughout the day and have them tune in during their commute home.

“The trick is how to get them to stay with you once you drop the commercial free segment,” Sislen says. Looking at each station, “you can see that for all of them afternoons are generally the peak, which is what we see in PPM markets,” Miller adds. “That’s when the most amount of people are tuning into radio so that’s going to move things around regardless of what else is happening earlier in the day.”

“Commercial free is certainly an attraction and we know that playing the commercial game is important to listeners especially with all the competition today, from services where there are no commercials or there are limited commercial breaks, as opposed to some of the traditional radio stop sets,” Miller continues. “It’s important and something that can move the audience around, but it certainly is not a cure all.” – Jay Gleason