20 Minute Commercial Break!

[Marcgoldie]

I have been a Sirius subscriber for over a year so I rarely turn on FM anymore. But this morning I decided to leave the Sirius off in order to listen to Howard Stern and all his talk about the big announcements from yesterday. Well, I instantly was reminded of one of the big reasons I don't miss FM... the commercials. I know Stern takes less breaks, but they are longer than music stations because of that. But I am not kidding, they just played a 20 minute segment of all commercials from 9:15AM to 9:35AM. I couldn't believe it! I know he will have commercials when he is on Sirius, but he said they will be much shorter or they will play stand up comedy or something to fill the space... Man, 20 minutes of commercials is amazing to listen to, and I hope I never hear it again. It may be FREE-FM, but that's because its FREE of content and full of commercials!

[ProperModulation]

I have been a Sirius subscriber for over a year so I rarely turn on FM anymore. But this morning I decided to leave the Sirius off in order to listen to Howard Stern and all his talk about the big announcements from yesterday. Well, I instantly was reminded of one of the big reasons I don't miss FM... the commercials. I know Stern takes less breaks, but they are longer than music stations because of that. But I am not kidding, they just played a 20 minute segment of all commercials from 9:15AM to 9:35AM. I couldn't believe it! I know he will have commercials when he is on Sirius, but he said they will be much shorter or they will play stand up comedy or something to fill the space... Man, 20 minutes of commercials is amazing to listen to, and I hope I never hear it again. It may be FREE-FM, but that's because its FREE of content and full of commercials!

To make things worse, in LA they actually insert MORE commercial breaks into the show! Howard will be mid-sentence and you'll hear a piece of tape of Howard saying "We'll be right back..." followed by a 15 min commerical break. Then when they come back, it's right back to the half-sentence where they broke in. And every time Howard says the time on the air (especially at the end of the show), it's always about a half hour earlier than the real time on the West coast since they insert so many commercials and extend the length of the re-broadcast.

Can't wait for 1/9/06!

[Marcgoldie]

Wow, that stinks too, I didn't know stations added even more commercials.

Is it always this bad? Like I said in the previous post they played 20 minutes of commercials from 9:15-9:35. They were back on for 30 minutes then broke again for 10 minutes from 10:05-10:15. They came back to wrap up the show for 20 minutes and were off at 10:35. And now they have played an additional 25 minutes of commercials after Howard before going into their own programming.

So from 9:15 - 11:00AM, they played 55 total minutes of commercials (out of 105 minutes of air time!) Absolutely amazing!

And for those of you wondering, I was listening on 94.1 in Philadephia.

[ProperModulation]

Wow, that stinks too, I didn't know stations added even more commercials.

Is it always this bad? Like I said in the previous post they played 20 minutes of commercials from 9:15-9:35. They were back on for 30 minutes then broke again for 10 minutes from 10:05-10:15. They came back to wrap up the show for 20 minutes and were off at 10:35. And now they have played an additional 25 minutes of commercials after Howard before going into their own programming.

So from 9:15 - 11:00AM, they played 55 total minutes of commercials (out of 105 minutes of air time!) Absolutely amazing!

And for those of you wondering, I was listening on 94.1 in Philadephia.

That sounds about like how it is on the LA station - tons of commercials. It's always been that way out here. Back when I first started listening in high shcool (early 90's), during the summer I would get up at 6 to listen, and take small naps during the 15-20 minute breaks. I always saw commercials as a double edged sword. A high commercial load means that the show is popular enough to bring in the advertisers which means that the show will probably survive another year. If the commercials dried up and we had 5 minute breaks, it would probably mean that the show was on it's last legs. So even though long breaks suck, I've never complained too much since it is a good indicator that the show is doing well and will be around for a long time to come. I'm hoping that when the show moves to Sirius, our monthly fees will be enough to suppliment the show revenue enough to allow for shorter commercial breaks, but who knows. Mel didn't build his radio empire by turning down advertising dollars...

But the bottom line is that we have Howard for at least another 5 years, and that is worth WAY more than I've spent on my Sirius equipment and subscriptions!

[{StatuSChecKa}]

HAHA, Howard is on a Rap Station here, So they cant wait to get Howard Off the Air...
So here in Austin we have 4 minute commercial breaks....He is on the 1 hour delay here, so the station chop's out all the commercial breaks :cool:

During the News segment, we dont even have breaks.

[mytesirius]

Wow, that stinks too, I didn't know stations added even more commercials.

Is it always this bad? Like I said in the previous post they played 20 minutes of commercials from 9:15-9:35. They were back on for 30 minutes then broke again for 10 minutes from 10:05-10:15. They came back to wrap up the show for 20 minutes and were off at 10:35. And now they have played an additional 25 minutes of commercials after Howard before going into their own programming.

So from 9:15 - 11:00AM, they played 55 total minutes of commercials (out of 105 minutes of air time!) Absolutely amazing!

And for those of you wondering, I was listening on 94.1 in Philadephia.

Yes, that's true. I live in LA & listen to Howard but since I purchased my Sirius satellite radio & subscription, I turn to Sirius when those never ending commercials start.....they seem to go on FOREVER!

I usually listen to the NFL channel on Sirius. The commercials seem to last no more than 5 minutes then it's back to the show. I hope it's the same once Howard jumps onboard for good in January.