Stations set to reduce ad time

Come the new year, there will be fewer commercials on some of the city's top radio stations. Could it be that Clear Channel Radio, which counts ''Kiss" WXKS-FM (107.9) and ''Jammin' " WJMN-FM (94.5) among its nearly 1,200 US outlets, is preparing a belated holiday present for listeners?

Not exactly: Although WXKS-FM and WJMN, along with Clear Channel's smaller local outlets WXKS-AM (1430) and WKOX-AM (1200), will begin airing fewer ads on Jan. 1 as part of the company's new ''less is more" campaign, the concept may be as much for the giant corporation's benefit as it is for listeners. By some accounts, the cutback may be what saves radio from dying out.

''Enlightened self-interest" is what Jack Foley, regional vice president of sales for Clear Channel Radio, calls it. ''It's better for the advertisers, better for the listeners, and we won't lose profitability."

The cutbacks should be apparent to anyone who tunes in for any length of time, and media analysts report that other radio companies are likely to follow suit.

Although the Clear Channel changes will vary according to station and time of day, both the number of ads and length of ad breaks will be shorter.

Matt Siegel's 6-10 a.m. morning show on WXKS-FM, for example, will decrease its ads from 17 minutes an hour to 11.

The ads on WJMN's ''Ramiro and Pebbles" morning show, also 6-10 a.m., will drop from 16 to 12 minutes an hour.

In addition, says Foley, no ad break -- or clump of ads -- will run longer than four minutes. (Current ad breaks can easily run up to seven minutes long.)

Nor will any break have any more than six individual ads in it. (In other words, listeners won't have to listen to eight 30-second ads in a four-minute break.)

The advantage to listeners is obvious -- fewer ads means more music on WXKS-FM and WJMN and more talk on the Air America stations WKOX and WXKS-AM.

But what is the advantage for advertisers?

For starters, Clear Channel stations will be selling more of their shorter ad time. And although in the past Clear Channel and other large corporations have charged as much for short ads as for full, minute-long ones, they will not this time around -- so advertisers can get a discount while still getting exposure.

On average, a 30-second ad will now cost roughly 75 percent of what a full 60-second ad costs, Foley says. (Actual prices vary with station, time of day, and other factors.) A 15-second ad will cost only about half of a full minute ad. ''And you can recite the Pledge of Allegiance in 15 seconds," says Foley, who oversees sales for Clear Channel's 44 New England stations.

The stations, clearly, make more money per minute by selling the smaller ads, and Foley says they expect the move to be ''revenue neutral."

But the advantages go beyond the bottom line: They may just save radio's future. A recent report by Denver-based Paragon Media Strategies has charted an alarming decline in overall radio listeners -- and excess ads are at least partly to blame.

Time spent listening, according to Paragon president Larry Johnson, has declined 15 percent from 1993 to 2003, 10 percent in the last six years alone. And the decline among younger listeners has been even greater. ''People are listening to [ad-free] iPods and CDs more than they're listening to radio," Johnson says. ''That's a formidable obstacle for radio."

Foley acknowledges the ''less is more" campaign came about in part to address this loss of listeners. ''There are going to be more and more options, and we want to hit the right balance," he says.

Where did all these ads come from?

According to media analyst Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, the floodgates opened with the consolidation of stations, following the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Foley agrees that with fewer companies owning more stations, ''adding that new inventory didn't cost anything other than the sales commission, so it was dramatically increasing profitability."

But now, he says, the radio corporations have begun to realize that unrestricted ad sales have cost stations much of their audience.

This campaign should bring ad levels back to what they were around 1995, Foley says. That is, back to roughly when listeners began to turn their radios off.

He adds that when ''you put the system out of whack," people will seek other options. ''What we think we've done with 'less is more' is put it back in balance."

Spinning the dial
WGBH-FM (89.7) has added a third performance of its ''A Christmas Celtic Sojourn" this weekend. The new show, Saturday at 3 p.m., features the same lineup as the sold-out evening shows, with Sean Keane, the Sharon Shannon Band, Aoife O'Donovan and Friends, dancers Kieran Jordan and Kevin Doyle, and WGBH host Brian O'Donovan. Tickets for the added performance can be purchased by calling 617-931-2787.

Globe on NECN

Here's what's happening on ''Around the Globe" today on NECN:

12:30 p.m.: ''Globe at Home" -- Snow sports writer Tony Chamberlain and Susan Duplessis, spokesperson for Sunday River, with the skinny on the ski season.

4 p.m.: ''Around the Globe"

6:30 p.m.: ''New England Business Day"

8 p.m.: ''NewsNight"

Schedule is subject to change.

Talk of the dial

7 p.m. WUMB-FM (91.9) -- ''Folkscene." Guest: Le Vent Du Nord, musical group.

Other radio highlights

9 a.m. WCRB-FM (102.5) -- Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12; Schumann's Symphony No. 3.