• by Frank Saxe , November 6, 2002

There are bars in Boston where you still cannot be served a Sam Adams Beer, following the brewery’s sponsorship of a controversial radio contest last August that led to a couple having sex inside New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. That stunt, on Viacom/Infinity’s Opie and Anthony show, brought the issues of radio content to the forefront. Advertisers have long been sensitive to the environment their spots air in, yet a new survey finds that they may be taking too tough a stand when trying to reach young listeners.

Following the Opie and Anthony dust-up, Jacobs Media and Edison Media Research conducted an online poll on 20 rock radio websites across the country. More than 7,300 people responded, and the results were surprising. Rock listeners say radio is no more “dirty or explicit” than TV or cable. Less than one-third feel “shock jock radio personalities have gone too far.” 71% agreed radio personalities “should be able to say whatever they please,” and only 56% said Opie & Anthony deserved to be fired for their sex-in-St. Pat’s stunt, and perhaps most interesting for ad buyers: respondents were more than twice as likely to tune-in to hear a personality that pushes the limits.

“Perhaps the way advertisers might view these issues is often times considerably different from the way the audience views them,” says consultant Fred Jacobs. “A couple of letters or emails can go a long way in getting an advertiser from using a station, but listeners of rock radio have a high amount of tolerance to this content.”

The decision about whether or not to buy is quite complicated, explains Hill, Holliday SVP/director of local broadcast Karen Agresti. “We walk a fine line between giving the value to the client, and what is perceived as an appropriate program.” She says there have been a number of cases where complaints to advertisers, largely from religious-based organizations, have led to spots being pulled.

Yet Jacobs, who admittedly works for the broadcasters and not the advertisers, says those marketing to 18 to 34 year olds must remember that a young person’s tolerance is very different. “For advertisers that are going after a rock audience to stay away from radio stations that have morning shows with explicit content just misses a big part of the audience. For an advertiser going after this audience, they have to understand who they are talking to in order to communicate to them.”

Adam & Eve, the nation’s largest adult catalog and website, this week announced it entered into a one-month agreement with the Howard Stern Show program. During the month of November, Stern will tout the sex-positive message of Adam & Eve and its products. “We’re an adult product so the adult audience that Howard Stern has is the audience that we’re going after,” says spokeswoman Katy Zvolerin.

Similar to broadcast television, there is a limited amount of government regulation of radio content, and Federal Communications Commission is still trying to determine whether to fine Infinity for the Opie and Anthony broadcast. But the government’s fines seem to have not much of an impact on the market. Several years ago, Infinity’s Howard Stern was most famously fined $1 million, while Emmis’ Chicago-based Mancow program was hit with another $21,000 fine only last week – but both men keep at it.

Since the Opie and Anthony scandal, it appears broadcasters may be more cautious about the content they air. A Sacramento DJ was fired in September after he aired a spoof song about sex with young girls, and in Phoenix a morning man was fired after he made a crass phone call to the widow of baseball player Darryl Kile. Advertisers have also been even more nervous about on-the-edge programming, says Agresti. “Clients have been nervous. It’s been very hard to get them to buy ads.”

But for all the cleansing that is supposed occurring, Adam & Eve’s Zvolerin feels that whatever conservatism was out there is quickly fading. “It caused a little fear when it happened, but things are back the way they were before."