Peak Hours, Drive Time – Online Radio
Posted 4th January 2016 by Lee
“In radiobroadcasting, drive time refers to dayparts in which radio broadcasters attempt to reach the large number of people who listen to their car radios while driving to and from work. The drivetime periods are when the number of radio listeners is at its peak and, thus, commercial radio can charge the most for advertising. Drive times coincide with rush hours.” –Wikipedia
So, how does this apply to the peak hours of your online radio? Well, it’s the same theory, just most likely to be a different time of the day, unless your listeners have a posh phone/car system and a good quality signal on their drive to/from work… many of your listeners may be tuned in from their offices, replying to support tickets with your station on in the background for a bit of music (I know I am! – yes even at 22:07 at night while I’m writing this). Your radio station will have its very own “peak hours” when it’s most busy in terms of listeners.
Where can I find my peak hours?
This information can be found within CentovaCast (look under Statistics -> Report -> Historical).
For a station who’s average listeners are higher on a Tuesday during the “Lunch” period, this would be your “peak” of this particular day of the week. If you look at the week as a whole, you will see that your average listeners may be higher at lunch time all week (or not in some cases). This would be considered as your “peak hours”. You can change the reporting in CentovaCast to report over a 30 day period to get a more accurate result here. This would provide you with an average of the particular period over all days in the week in the 30 day period which you selected. This should give you some idea when your stream is most popular and when your stations peak hours are.
Why do I need to know my peak hours?
If you’re a radio broadcaster, you are likely to be playing advertisements, either for your own shows/website/features etc, or for 3rd party advertisers. To get the best response from your advertising efforts, and generate the most income, you are going to want to push these more during the peak hours of your station. Playing an advert to 20 people will get a much less response rate than playing to 100 people. While they may not all respond, they’d have heard it – and that’s where catchy jingles come in to save the day 😉 If you’re not interested in advertising, the values may not be of much use, but it’s interesting information to take a look at and we’d recommend you do…
If you need any assistance finding your statistics, or need help understanding the reporting – get in touch with us!
Categories: SHOUTcast
