January 25, 2023 at 7:08PM

I’m listening to tonight’s men’s basketball game between Northwestern and Nebrasketball on WGN while I make dinner. I don’t listen to a lot of commercial radio, but one thing that stands out to me is how radio ads don’t feel like they’ve changed at all in at least the last 25 years. They sound the same — that slightly frantic, fake conversational tone — and it feels like they’re selling the same things too.

Why is that? It’s not something inherent to audio, since podcast ads have a very different flavor. Is it audio plus time limits? User research around listening habits for people in cars? Or are the demographics of commercial radio skewed toward people whose tastes and buying habits haven’t changed since 1998?