Audacy

[kevin_standlee]

What used to be radio.com rebranded itself as Audacy earlier this year (and it's part of what was once was known as CBS Radio; aren't corporate takeovers and rebranding fun?), and I listen to KCBS news radio from the Bay Area in the mornings. Rather than just rebroadcasting the KCBS program, Audacy "local advertising from the advertisers of the nearest Audacy cluster of stations," according to Wikipedia. Sometimes that works; I've heard ads from a Carson City car dealer, for example. Sometimes I wonder exactly where they think I am, as I keep hearing ads for Volcano Harley, which appears to be a motorcycle dealership in the Vancouver WA area.

Another thing about the online radio feed is that when it doesn't have any ads, it plays public service announcements. That by itself isn't unusual, as many radio stations do that so they don't have "dead air" in their commercial breaks. But something about how Audacy interacts with KCBS means that they occasionally apparently cannot tell when KCBS has come out of the break, and they start playing the same one or two PSAs on a continuous loop, and the only way to get out of it is to reload the page. There is probably a reasonable technical reason for this, but it does get a bit annoying when I'm listening to it at a remove on a portable speaker and can't easily go to my computer to kick it out of the loop.

Comments

[kevin_standlee]

Update: I'm now also getting ads for a chain of Vancouver-area restaurants, so it seems clear that Audacy thinks that the greater Reno area is in Washington. Not that Gustav's doesn't sound appetizing, but I'm not likely to be going there anytime soon, even if there wasn't a pandemic going on.

[garyomaha]

Let's see if I can reply without hijacking your entire blog. :) As a former radio guy and still an avid radio listener, I used to listen to distant stations (DXing) all the time but, due to home electronics causing excessive RF noise and the miracle of the Internet, I now mostly stream the distant stations I like. The phenomenon you describe was brought about to make lemons out of lemonade because of some copyright issues (that I've never fully figured out) forcing stations to not run their on-air commercials over the Internet. For me that's been a sad thing overall, because I'd rather hear their home spots, wherever they are, instead of spots aimed at an Internet listener or - as you pointed out -- PSAs (or Geico commercials) over and over. In fact, clearly labeling me the President of the Odd Duck Club, I would *pay* to hear the full local broadcasts rather than the repetitive streams. I'm an occasional listener OF WBBM Chicago, the Chicago version of KCBS, but I find myself having to tune away because of those streaming spots. I could go on, but won't. (Sorry for the lengthy whining.)

[kevin_standlee]

I know what you mean. I'd be happy to hear the local Bay Area ads.

Sometimes they more or less get my location right. At least ads for the Sacramento Farm-to-Fork Festival are slightly more relevant to me than those for restaurants and motorcycle dealerships in Washington. But it's a bit annoying when the same commercial plays two or three times in a row.