Radio commercial

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A radio commercial (often called in the United Kingdom, or a spot in the USA to people in the business) is a form of advertising in which goods, services, organizations, ideas, etc. are promoted via the medium of radio. Many commercials are produced by an outside ad agency or radio production company and airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials.

Radio commercials are usually sold in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 120 second increments. While a 60 second radio commercial is twice as long as a 30 second radio commercial, it is rarely sold at twice the price. While practices vary, most radio stations only charge 20-30% more for the longer spot.

While many commercials are professionally produced, radio is not out of reach for the small retail business owner. Most local radio stations have the ability to produce radio commercials in house using their own announcers. Often local radio stations will write and even produce the radio commercials for local retail advertisers at no additional cost when the merchant purchases a schedule of "spots" on the station. In the UK however, most advertisers accept they will have to pay additional sums for the production of a proper radio commercial that has been written by a professional script writer and voiced by a voice artist.

Radio announcements can be made as a “live read” or broadcast through a personal endorser. Again, this is not commonplace in the UK. When a radio announcer reads a copy of the advertisement per verbatim, this is what is referred to as a “live read”. When a product and/or service is incorporated into the announcers’ dialogue on a personal level, they are what is called a personal endorser. Personal endorsements are highly relationship driven. An endorser could be a customer themself or be paid by the advertiser to help promote their product or service. In the UK, personal endorsements by presenters broadcasting on the same station in live reads are illegal. Not only that but 'live read' commercials are considered to be the lowest-quality form of radio advertising and are generally not utilised.

In the USA, the term “billboard” refers to highly condensed commercials that generally last about ten seconds which air before or after a feature or program that gives credit to the advertiser for sponsoring the segment. Often, the sponsor’s commercial will air immediately following the billboard. Radio billboards are sale features that are considered “added value” to the advertiser.

In the UK, with the formation of major radio companies in the 1990's, many radio stations (as a cost-saving measure) began to contract a substantial amount of their local and regional commercial production requirements to independent companies.

Radio commercials can be delivered to a network of radio stations directly from the recording studio or transmitted via satellite, internet or ISDN.

The first radio commercial is credited to WEAF, New York on August 28, 1922 for the Queensboro real estate corporation. The ten-minute live commercial was voiced by H.M. Blackwell, a representative of Queensboro.