I have always wondered if advertisers could focus their message on a particular station to get their message across or if they have to buy the entire cluster such as iHeartRadio or Audacy?
If I'm a car dealer, I'm looking to buy time on all of the stations within a corporate tent.
This is a family message board, so I'll try to edit myself for the sake of this discussion.
If I were to advertise beer, motorcycles, men's prophylactics, etc., I would be looking to focus my ads on stations such as The Drive/97.1 and Rock 95.5 to name two. I probably wouldn't be looking at WLIT-FM and chances are, they may not accept even a tasteful ad. They're a ratings powerhouse, however, I'm trying to reach a particular demographic.
To sum it up, do advertisers have the option to buy time on one station or is it the entire bundle within the cluster?
Finally, would a sales department recommend advertising during certain hours on a given station if the cluster was the only option?
They can do one station or the entire cluster. They can also do specific stations within the cluster.
Maybe someone wanted to reach the Urban audience only. Take iHeart for example. They could likely do a package deal. Buy both FMs, get the AMs for free or a reduced price. That is actually common practice.
Should point out, a lot of ads you hear especially from national advertisers are barter. They are just paying for network programming and other things stations use like prep services. So it doesn't matter what station it is, they still have to run the ads.