commercial time

Hi!

The First Commandment of Part 15 Broadcasters: Thou shalt not use the words Part 15 and Pirate radio in the same sentence. (Kind of like community programming and FCC priorities.)

Seriously, there's nothing that says you can't sell commercial time on a legal Part 15 station. About the only requirement would be to make sure it is not obscene or slanderous in any way. There are some weird laws regarding political advertising in regard to rates charged. (Someone correct me if this has changed). On a commercial station ANY politician can only be charged the lowest rate charged to any advertiser. So for instance if someone bought 1000 30 second ads for one week, paid in advance and you gave them the special rate of $1 per spot, you would have to offer that same rate to any politician regardless of how many spots they wanted to buy (even if they only wanted one.) This rule may have gone away with the fairness doctrine and might not apply to Part 15 anyway.

The biggest hinderance to selling ads on Part 15 stations is convincing advertisers that you are truly offering them a service.

A pirate station is illegal to begin with so it probably won't matter whether you sell advertising. The problem is that by selling advertising on a pirate station you are probably going to leave a traceable trail to your operation. Since a pirate operation is more likely be shut down can you guarantee the airing of any advertiser's commercial purchase?

oldguy,

You can legally sell air time on a Part-15 station.

I have successfully sold air time in the past to local churches
and even Clear Channel's Entertainment division when they brought the Bill Gaither Tour to our area. They also provided giveaway tickets to the concert.

There is a paper trail to your station if you do this.

You can see the sponsors of my station now at this site:
http://www.expage.com/radiomall

Some are on-air; others aren't; but all are providing a commercial base of sorts to help keep the station on the air.

I hope this is helpful.

Kindest regards,

radioboy

I have worked in commercial radio for over 30 years, and as such have learned a lot about the FCC's and NAB's view of what to do & not to do. As far as political advertising is concerned you are right. You have to give a political advertiser your "lowest unit rate". If that has changed, it's news to me, but I have been out of the business for 7 years (minus the 2.5 years I have been a "part15 +" operator (OK..."part15 +" means I can raise or lower my ERP very quickly from 0 to 5 watts, depending on who is in the neighborhood!). In two years I have never had a problem.

I have some friends who own a bar/pizza/live music venue near my house. I run weather forcasts once an hour sponsored by the "D*Note" for free. Well, maybe on a trade-out basis. But no listerner has ever complained about a commercial on my station. Some people actually commended the fact that I didn't "hype" the spot, but kept it conversational and natural.

The more like a "real" radio station I can sound, the better, in terms of survival. Seeing that I sometimes run more that a legal signal, the more real I sound, the less conspicuous I am....make sense? Or is that just a rationalization?