Things about radio commercials I never noticed until recently

I have tried almost my entire life to ignore com­mer­cials of any kind. But, as of late, I have been forced to not only lis­ten, but pay atten­tion to a great deal of radio com­mer­cials. Here are a few things I’ve noticed.

1. You know how in mag­a­zines they have those “spe­cial adver­tis­ing section“s? Well, they do that in radio, too. They try really hard to make com­mer­cials sound like they’re actu­ally con­tent. Often, the hosts of the shows will “tell” you that they really love a prod­uct, but they’ve never used the thing at all. Well, in a mag­a­zine, they put “adver­tise­ment” at the top, but in radio, they don’t. You’re just expected to know. Or not, more likely.

2. They try really hard to make peo­ple sound like they’re being con­ver­sa­tional. But when you lis­ten to a com­mer­cial over and over and over again, the ticks and affec­ta­tions start to stand out. And then you start to won­der if they’re doing it on pur­pose. And then you know for cer­tain that they are because they don’t do any­thing unless there are a mil­lion dif­fer­ent num­bers back­ing their decisions.

3. I used to really be both­ered by the pledge dri­ves on pub­lic radio. Now, though, I will will­fully and gladly take that if this is the alter­na­tive. The peo­ple that adver­tise on radio these days are the worst of the bottom-​​feeding, pyramid-​​scheming lot and it’s incred­i­bly insult­ing to any­one with at least two brain cells.