How many weekly ads would you estimate it takes to reach two-thirds of your station’s audience? New analysis from the Cumulus Media Audio Active Group and the RAB has an answer, and many AEs may be wildly underselling what it takes to move the needle.
Most AM/FM radio advertisers in the US are buying schedules too light to produce meaningful results, according to new research from the Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group, published in partnership with the RAB. The report was authored by Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard and draws on Fall 2025 Nielsen Audio nationwide data across persons 18+, Monday through Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight, in diary markets.
Reach and frequency analysis from Media Monitors covers a single week in August 2020 across 1,685 radio stations in 99 markets, tracking 183,425 commercials.
The report frames campaign intensity across four tiers. A minimum/very light schedule reaches one-third of a station’s audience an average of 1.4 times per week. A maintenance/light schedule reaches half the audience twice. A high impact/medium schedule reaches two-thirds an average of three times. The launch/heavy tier, also called the Optimum Effective Schedule, reaches 78% of the audience an average of 4.3 times. The weekly ad counts required to hit each threshold are derived from station turnover, calculated by dividing cume audience by average quarter-hour persons.
Ad counts vary by format, with high-turnover stations requiring the most units. Top 40 and Sports stations need 14 weekly ads for a minimum schedule, 29 for maintenance, 61 for high impact, and 108 for launch. News/Talk and Urban stations, with higher time-spent listening, sit at the lower end: 10 and 9 at minimum, respectively, and 76 at launch for both.
The perception gap documented in an RAB study of 334 agencies and sellers is dire. Asked how many weekly ads are needed to reach two-thirds of a station’s audience, respondents estimated 33. The actual figure is 51. For a launch-level buy reaching 78%, agencies guessed 46. The actual number is 102, more than double.
That underestimation has direct consequences for how schedules are built and what outcomes sellers and clients can reasonably expect. Media Monitors data makes clear that most US radio campaigns never approach the upper tiers: 73% of schedules fall into the minimum/very light category, reaching roughly one-third of a station’s cume audience 1.5 times on average. Another 19% qualify as maintenance/light. Just 4% reach high impact levels. Only 2% qualify as launch/heavy.
Business outcome data from a LeadsRx and iHeartMedia automotive attribution study covering 310 advertisers across 100 markets and 19 brands from January 2018 through May 2019 illustrates what heavier scheduling produces. Campaigns running one to nine daily ads generated 5% website traffic lift. At 40 or more daily ads, lift reached 55%, eleven times the result of the lightest tier.
Roy H. Williams’s Wizards of Ads agency, cited in the report as a benchmark for effective campaign design, recommends the high impact/medium schedule as the standard for sustained advertising: weekly reach of two-thirds of a station audience three times, run continuously for 52 weeks.
For sellers, the report recommends building proposal grids that map the four tiers to specific weekly investment levels — shifting conversations toward desired outcomes rather than available budget. The underlying point is direct: a light schedule cannot produce grand opening results, and setting accurate expectations at the proposal stage protects the relationship when results fall short.
