Every order supports this station. That's what some commercial radio stations are thinking. This allows stations to turn the dramatic use of silence and over-annunciation associated with syndicated blabbers such as Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura into cold, hard cash. Stations use Cash to add an extra three or four minutes of salable time to their usual number of commercials. The average commercial station already runs as many as twenty minutes of commercials per hour.
Cash simply listens for short pauses, breaths, and long words, then snips away.
On this point, radio programmers remain mute. Prime Image insists the change is negligible. The profit demands resulting from radio mega-mergers over the past few years. Before Congress loosened radio station ownership regulations in 1996, the largest single owner controlled 30 stations. Today, industry giant Clear Channel owns 830 radio stations.