In broadcast media, time really is money. This is because some time slots are simply more
commercially viable for your organisation to receive coverage than with others. In other words, you are more likely to profit off of media coverage that is being aired at specific times.
When acquiring media monitoring services, your data coverage is personalised according to the commercial viability of these broadcast times.
Curious to know how this works? Then let’s not waste any time:
Active time slots
In media monitoring, active time slots refer to
prime or
peak time periods when broadcast stations are being monitored to collect an organisation’s coverage.
These are times when the highest amount of viewers or listeners are consuming the content aired by the broadcast channel — making media coverage during these time slots more
profitable.
An example of a peak time slot is known as
drive time. Drive times refer to the time of the day that some people call “rush hour” — when multiple people are commuting to work and, therefore, listening to the radio in their cars. This is an ideal time for an organisation to receive media coverage because the likelihood of more people listening to it is higher.
Other examples of peak time periods would be during the airing of news shows or sports shows, due to their high listenership.
As the number of people working remotely has increased, these times may have been impacted slightly. Therefore, radios and media monitoring companies have had to adjust by altering what is being aired and recorded — based off of new peak time slots. This ensures the viability of these identified priority times.
Inactive time slots
Inactive time slots refer to when media monitoring services are
not listening to these specific stations. This is because these time periods are when media coverage isn’t commercially viable and, therefore, is less likely to generate profit for the organisation.
An example of this type of time slot is referred to as a
graveyard time slot or a
death time slot. This time slot usually occurs very late at night or in the early hours of the morning when many people are still asleep and not listening to the radio. Therefore, this is a period of the day where very few people will be listening to an organisation’s media coverage — making it less commercially viable then other times of the day.
When it comes to monitoring active and inactive time slots, Newsclip prides itself on having extensive regional and community reach. In order to attain this reach, most of its resources are applied to stations and time slots that yield the most viable content. Put simply, Newsclip places a focus on stations where most corporate mentions come from for their client base.
Want to learn more about the ins and outs of media monitoring? Then be sure to read our blog about
10 media monitoring definitions you need to know.*Image courtesy of Canva