• Ad Age, Monday, March 5, 2007 11 AM

Columnist Al Ries loves radio, but always turns it off at the top and bottom of the hour because they are "black holes" with way too many ads. "For every ad that radio stations used to run, it now seems like they run two," he writes, noting there is a link between ad volume and effectiveness and the greater the volume, the less effective any individual spot will be.

He notes that magazine readership studies have shown that an ad in a thin issue is more likely to be noticed and read than the same one in a thick issue of the same book. And "in the long run, the health of the advertising industry is related to effectiveness. As the increasing clutter reduces the effectiveness of advertising, clients are turning to other ways to promote their products and services."

Radio is a powerful medium with relatively low costs, he concludes, but the surfeit of ads "threatens the very existence of the medium. Too much is too much."

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