Love your station and I’m a loyal listener … but I ‘m dismayed by some of the scum advertisers!

Example: a debt consolidation company parading as a government bailout program advertising on Dave Ramsey’s show. Also, a new ad from a psychic organization …yuk. I’m guessing that you have no control over these ads that are not on the scale I”d like.

ANSWER

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Much of the advertising to which you refer is on the air as a result of one or another of our network affiliations. The financial model in television and radio is that the network provides the programming in return for clearing the network’s commercials, either directly in the program that the network provides or at some other time during the broadcast day.

Like most news and talk-formatted radio stations, we have multiple network affiliations. Our primary news network is ABC. We get Texas-related news content as a result of our affiliation with the Texas State Network. We air commercials for the Associated Press Radio Network as a part of our compensation to the AP for our news wire service. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck come to us via Premiere Radio Networks.

All of these affiliations require that we air the commercials that they sell.

One of the by-products of the very difficult economy we have suffered is the downgrading of the caliber of advertisers to which network commercials are being sold. Demand for broadcast commercial inventory is a function of economic activity and, as we all know, economic activity has not been so great in the past couple of years. As Darrell Royal once said, “old ugly is better than old nothing,” and in this economy we are all, station owners and networks alike, compelled to seek revenue from whatever sources there are.

We will not knowingly air commercials that are demonstrably false or misleading. This includes commercials from the network. We will not air commercials that cross a line (the we define) with respect to taste or
propriety.

This standard, however, still allows commercials on the air that we might rather not have. But I have to be reasonable with respect to declining to air network commercials. They have to have the revenue or they cannot continue to provide the programming.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Paul L. Gleiser