Drive time

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drive time is prime time for radio broadcasting. It consists of the morning hours when listeners wake up, get ready, and head to work or school, and the afternoon hours when they are heading home and before their evening meal. These are the periods where the number of listeners is highest and, thus, commercial radio can charge the most for advertising. A related term is rush hour.

The exact times vary: morning drive-times typically include 6-9 a.m.; afternoon drive-times typically include 3-7 p.m.

Drive time often includes a heavier run of traffic reports, for which many stations employ their own helicopter or hire a third-party traffic reporting service.

For popular music-oriented stations, morning drive-time is typically dominated by the "morning zoo" genre of radio program. For news/talk stations, drive-time is characterized by regular news updates, as well as extremely frequent updates on traffic and weather forecasts to help commuters get to and from work.

In the United Kingdom, the term "drivetime" is used almost exclusively to refer to the evening period (most commonly 4-7 p.m.); the term used for the morning is breakfast.

Drivetime is also a sub-genre of music generally allied with the power ballad, and consisting of music deemed especially suitable for listening to while driving. Commonly advertised in compilations, the genre is usually associated with record labels K-TEL and Time-Life.

Examples of drivetime songs include 'Hazard' by Richard Marx, 'Drive' by The Cars and 'Broken Wings' by Mr Mister.