(This is an old blog post from 2017 that has been updated in places to reflect current info.)
Believe it or not... If you’ve ever heard the terms “prime-time”, “morning drive” or “late-night”, you already have some idea of what it is.
Put simply: a daypart is the practice of dividing up the broadcast day into several parts.
For example - at West Coast Radio our dayparts are as follows:
| ON-AIR SHIFTS | Category | COMMERCIALS |
| 6 am to 10 am | BREAKFAST | 5.30 am to 9 am |
| 10 am to Noon | MID-MORNING | 9am to noon |
| Noon to 3 pm | AFTERNOONS | Noon to 3 pm |
| 3 pm to 6 pm | DRIVE | 3 pm to 7 pm |
| 6 pm to midnight | NIGHTS | 7 pm to midnight |
For business brands, you will want to buy time in a part of the day where you know your target audience will be tuning in.
Are you promoting a sale?
You might want to target listeners during the morning drive, where there’s a chance they’ll hear you on their drives to work and tell their friends.
Are you promoting services for office or factory workers?
It might be beneficial for you to be aware of shift-change times and target those.
What if you’re promoting a weekend event?
Maybe it would be best to put more of your budget into Thursdays and Fridays when people are already thinking about what to do for the weekend.
Radio advertising works best when the same message is heard for a repeated number of times. Most people have to hear a commercial several times before they connect with it.
If you’re on the radio when people are tuning in, this maximizes your chances of being heard at a time where people are researching, shopping and spending.
And that’s a great place to be!
