For Maine small business owners, advertising on Portland radio seems to be a day job. Although most radio stations broadcast 24 hours, some advertisers believe no one tunes-in at night. Not only is this wrong, these misguided companies are missing a valuable marketing opportunity.
Last week, 699,315 adult consumers living in southern Maine listened to a Portland radio station. This is substantially more than watched a local TV station; read a local newspaper; or thumbed through a local magazine.
But, just because the sun sets, radio listeners don’t roll up their ears. According to Nielsen, 46% of consumers who listen to Portland radio between 6am and 7pm also listen at night.
To add a little perspective, there are more people who listen to Portland radio at night than read a local magazine at any time during the week. More people listen to Portland radio at night than ever listen to Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and Sirius/XM combined.

Although the moon creates dramatic tidal shifts on Casco Bay, it has a negligible effect on the quality of Portland’s night time radio audience. Business owners who advertise at night will reach consumers with the same socio-economic profile as those people who listen during the day.

There’s a real value proposition for Maine business owners to include nighttimes into their advertising schedules on Portland radio.
The cost of radio advertising is driven by a combination of audience size and demand. Because, many business owners chose only to run commercials during daylight hours only, the price rises to meet the demand.
Advertiser demand for nighttime commercials is far less robust. So, in general, the cost to advertise at night is about 25% of the cost of advertising during the day. Because, as mentioned before, 46% of the daytime audience is also available at night, a savvy business owner can reach almost half the audience for 1/4 of the price. The Wall Street guys call this arbitrage: the art of making money by exploiting price differences for the same commodity.
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