#990124 - 06/29/05 06:00 AM
Radio Commercials...
|
Jeff Irok
Senior Member
Registered: 06/27/03
Posts: 373
Loc: Torrington, CT
|
Offline
|
|
Hi -
I hope I have the right forum....A friend of mine who has a small business wants to run a commercial on the local radio station (AM) and approached me to record it. I have the equipment to do it. It will be just a 30-second spot with some music and him doing a voice-over.
I worked [briefly] in radio years ago (coincidentally, the same station that the ad is going on), and back then, everything, including commercials, was on carts. I haven't been in a radio station in years (mid-eighties), but I don't have to be a rocket scientist to know things have changed! So what I need to know is this: What media format do radio stations normally accept commercials on? CD? Tape? something else? I'd ask the station itself, but my friend doesn't want them to know that he's not going to use their studio to produce the ad just yet (I guess they charge outrageous prices). I'm sure it may vary from station to station, but I'd like an idea at what I'm looking at. Maybe it doesn't matter because they convert it to whatever they use...? I dunno. Anyway, thanks for any help!
- Jeff
_________________________
Check out my band's site at: All In.com
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990125 - 06/29/05 09:30 AM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Tedster
MP Hall of Fame Member
Registered: 09/21/00
Posts: 5933
|
|
Offline
|
|
Anything cueable, I imagine, which would either be a CD or reel. I'm not sure how many stations still have their reel-to-reel tape decks, but, I'd guess probably quite a few. In some cases, it was nice, especially if you had a reel with a bunch of spots on it to put low frequency cue tones in between 'em, so when you were fast forwarding you could hear the tones and tell where you were on the tape. CD might be your best bet, though.
_________________________
"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine...(WAH WAH WAH WAHHH!)"
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990126 - 06/29/05 09:30 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
dcwave
Senior Member
Registered: 02/19/01
Posts: 36
Loc: Spanish Fork, Utah, USA
|
|
Offline
|
|
I was part of a jigle contest last fall in Salt Lake City - all the jingles were played in rotation for about 6 months and they just took the CDDA or WAVs that were submitted and loaded them as MP3s into their playlist software. I've heard that many stations are doing that nowadays.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990127 - 06/29/05 09:51 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
bdbklyn
Platinum Member
Registered: 04/04/01
Posts: 1035
Loc: Los Angeles,CA,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Welcome Jeff. Ths forum is supposed to be about running a studio business or running your freelance engineering or production career.
We do, however, get some basic nuts and bolts questions, which we are happy to answer.
Regular audio CD would be fine and as dcdave said most will encode as mp3's to their playlist.
Bill Dooley
_________________________
Studio Guru
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990128 - 06/30/05 12:23 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Steevo
Gold Member
Registered: 03/01/02
Posts: 556
Loc: Paducah,KY USA
|
|
Offline
|
|
I do this all the time. Assuming the station is reasonably up to date, just email them an MP3 file of the spot. 128kbit will be plenty good for AM broadcast.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990129 - 06/30/05 02:16 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Jeff Irok
Senior Member
Registered: 06/27/03
Posts: 373
Loc: Torrington, CT
|
|
Offline
|
|
Thanks, folks. It sounds like it this is pretty doable, then. Nothing 'esotaric' or beyond my means. Cool!
_________________________
Check out my band's site at: All In.com
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990130 - 07/01/05 11:12 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Jazzman
Platinum Member
Registered: 08/15/01
Posts: 1409
Loc: ,,Hartland MI,USA
|
|
Offline
|
|
I did a radio spot for a client that wanted it on a cassette. He said they would transfer the spot to a continuous tape player set-up.
I guess most stations can handle almost anything.
Jazzman 
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990131 - 07/17/05 11:48 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Mark Weiss
Senior Member
Registered: 10/15/03
Posts: 176
Loc: New Milford, CT USA
|
|
Offline
|
|
I work my day job as a broadcast engineer for several New England radio stations. The trend has shifted toward minidisc. Every radio station has CD players also.
I would safely recommend burning the ad to a CD-DA disc. Cheap media, durable and good fidelity.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#990132 - 07/22/05 08:02 PM
Re: Radio Commercials...
|
Brother A
Member
Registered: 07/21/05
Posts: 4
Loc: Mansfield MA
|
|
Offline
|
|
Create 128kbs mp3 file on CD some stations allow you to upload via internet
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
Moderator: bdbklyn
|
|
|
