Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Free Radio Stations

What is the purpose of free radio stations?Free radio stations are way to listen to music without the advertisement and commercials from the major corporations. Now not all free radio stations are ad or commercial free, some radio stations do have ads and commercials. These are still free radio stations but free in a different way. These radio stations are free for you to listen to but they still charge for advertisement and commercial time.


The radio stations which charge for advertisement and commercial space differ big time from the radio stations which do not have advertisement or commercial space. First off radio stations which charge for ads and commercials have to cater to their sponsors. Don't you hate it when you are listening to a radio station and they go to commercial every 7 minutes? That is because they have to make room for all of their sponsor's ads and commercials to air. Normally the higher the ratings the more sponsor ads and commercials. Radio Stations which charge for on air ads and commercials cater to their paid advertisers. That is how they make their money. Before Howard Stern went to Satellite Radio if you ever watched his show you would notice how every 5 mins he would have to go to a commercial break, plus he was heavily censored on what he could say and what he could not say. The reason for this is two-fold. First Howard Stern had the number 1 show on the radio, so CBS was charging top dollar to get ad or commercial time during his show. The more commercial slots CBS could fill in the more money they made. Which butchered the show because they would go to a commercial break every five minutes. Now on the censorship, the big deal with censorship is the CBS company does not want Howard Stern to offend viewers. Not because they have high moral grounds but because they are afraid they may lose sponsors willing to pay for airtime on his show. Just look at what happened with Don Imus or Michael Vick, major corporations pulled theplug right away on the both of them because they did not want to lose customer sales.

With radio stations that charge for airtime there are many fine lines and politics they must follow. With radio stations who do not charge for airtime space they are in more control of what they play and what they say. The only problem with them is they do not normally make the same amount of income the larger stations make since they do not charge for airtime space. No matter which types of free radio stations you decide to listen to, just know when a station does not play commercials or play ads, you will get a better radio experience.


Free radio stations are the route many consumers are going since paid radio stations have way too many commercials. With free radio stations you will not have to listen to all of the garbage that goes along with them.
 
 

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