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KNX 1070 Is Smarter Than Me
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2803 Reads
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As a news consumer, I like to think I have gotten pretty smart about avoiding advertisements. Using TiVo, I fast-forward through commercial breaks; my pop-up blockers seem to do a decent job of keeping online ads out of my face, and in good, old-fashioned radio, I can work the preset buttons with the best of them, switching from station to station in search of music or content.
But lately, morning drive news radio has been outsmarting me and it’s driving me nuts. My nemesis? KNX 1070 morning anchor Dave Williams and his dreaded “ad-ecdote.”
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Much like the “advertorial”—the paid commercial content in newspapers and magazines that is laid out to look like a regular story or article (if you want an example, see Los Angeles Magazine almost every month)—the ad-ecdote is designed to sound like regular news commentary but, only reveals itself to be a plug for a product or service once the listener has been sucked in.
KNX’s Williams is especially good at the ad-ecdote because he has a folksy, conversational style that often leads into editorial tangents on legitimate news items. Several times during a broadcast, I will find myself listening to what I think is one of Williams’s brief editorial yarns, only to realize that he’s trying to sell me dog food or a new mortgage. It’s maddening.
At least print advertorials carry a disclaimer in the header: “paid commercial announcement”—on radio there is no similar tip-off. So while I strive to shift seamlessly away from the clutter of radio ads for laser eye doctors, mortgage loans, and bedding (“You’re killing me, Larry!!”), I can’t seem to shake Dave Williams.
I realize that the only solution is to turn off the radio or to switch to NPR (after all, commercial radio is, well, “commercial” and I am under no obligation to listen to it, nor am I entitled to get the product for “free”) but at this point it has become an affair of honor. I’ll either figure out his cadence and his verbal “tells,” or I’ll end up refinancing my house with no points, no closing costs, and no hassles. May the best man win!
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| Posted by: Ryan_Knoll on Monday, April 09, 2007 - 10:33 AM
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