ABSTRACT
In the United States, our economy is based on the buying and selling of products and services to one another. In commercial radio and television, the product that is sold is the audience. This chapter looks at the various elements that make up programming on US radio and television. The radio-TV business divides the programming day into standard time periods—dayparts. Radio and television schedule programming by dayparts so advertisers can target their messages to particular segments of the audience. Program elements must be arranged so that audience members may tune in and tune out and not feel they have missed anything. In larger cities, a number of stations aimed for the same target audience. Since the introduction of computer technology into station operation, the principles behind the clock chart have been built into radio programming software.
