[BC] Getting the Commercials on

[Mike McCarthy]

  There is a careful balance of this to be certain.  There are some 
national talk show hosts who have crossed the line from a catchy live 
read and back-selling relatables as you and countless others have done 
to an outright 5 minute or longer infomercial.

The latter drives listeners away in DROVES and frankly is a breachable 
violation of the affiliate agreement defining local and network ad time.

MM

On 11/20/2010 12:45 PM, Thomas G. Osenkowsky wrote:
> When I was an OM (PD/MD) I also made commercials part of my programming. I
> started with contests that forced the listeners to LISTEN to the product. I
> would have trivia questions about the song just played. For examples, in the
> Ian Matthews song "Shake It", name the five things the girl had? In the
> Ozark Mountain Daredevils song "Jackie Blue" (we played the LP version) what
> color were Jackie's eyes? It took me two months to prepare for April Fools
> Day. I would edit songs and listeners would have to call when they heard the
> wrong version. For example, in "I Am Woman" the last refrain says "I can
> face anything", whereas the previous two said "I can do anything". Or in
> "Summer In The City" I spliced in twice the bridge with the car horns twice.
> You had to actively listen to win.
>
> I then transitioned that philosophy into spots, asking questions like "What
> kind of wood is used in the Harmony dresser?" Advertisers loved it,
> listeners won prizes and billings were above expectations. Creativity was
> key. More work yes. Greater results, yes