Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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Dodger Thoughts reader Paul Haddad feels that KFWB is guilty of overindulgence in ads - at least in its programming surrounding the Dodger games - and has done the work to back it up:
All season long, I have been so annoyed by the onslaught of ads during Covering the Bases and Dodger Dugout. It is virtually unlistenable. I decided to do a little documentation, counting the ad time on a stopwatch.
Herewith are the results. It's pretty shocking. This was split up over two days - August 31 and September 1. On the first day, I timed from 6 pm to 6:15 pm. On the second day, I timed it from 6:15 to 6:35. So this is how the show breaks down from 6 pm to 6:35 pm. (The Dodgers/Diamondbacks game started at 6:35 both days.)
"Copy" refers, obviously, to actual programming, like The Dodger Mail Bag, the Players Corner, etc. Times are roughly accurate, give or take a couple seconds.
START 6:00
0:25 ads
2:20 copy
2:20 ads
2:20 copy
2:20 ads
1:10 copy
2:15 ads
1:10 copy
2:00 ads
2:00 copy
2:10 ads
2:00 copy
1:10 ads
1:00 copy
1:20 ads
2:10 copy
5:10 ads
0:55 copy
2:00 ads
END 6:35
Some of the "copy" includes even more ads in the theme music, like "The Dodger Injury Report is brought to you by Centinela Hospital ... and by your local Dodge dealer..." So in actuality, there is even more ad time sold than I listed above.
- TOTAL AD TIME: 19:10
- TOTAL COPY TIME: 15:05
- Fifty-eight percent of the 35-minute time was devoted to ads. Again, it's more like 60 percent when you add in the ads that are incorporated into the copy.
- In the final 20 minutes leading into the game, 11:50 went toward ads, 6:05 was copy. That's an astonishing 66-percent ad time. Who would ever sit through all this? Doesn't this start to become counterproductive toward the idea of drawing more viewers after a while?
The amount of ads do affect my willingness to listen - though this problem in my mind is not limited to KFWB. I am reluctant to listen to any ads on the radio - and when I know a station is going to town with them, it's time to run away.
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