In the past, infomercials were only very late at night or in the very early morning hours. Infomercial programming was simply taking up space so the television station stayed on air instead of signing off until the next day's programming. However, something happened and infomercials really began to become popular and actually perform well as far as sales were concerned. Over the years infomercial programming has changed when they are aired and now appear on many stations during peak hours. In fact, during the morning hours, mid-afternoon, and peak hours it is common to find infomercials. They may appear during the middle of the week as well as on weekends.
An example of infomercial and airtime can be seen with CNBC. For example, during the five-day work week there is only one hour of infomercials scheduled during the week. However, on the weekends this number jumps to 28 hours of infomercial airtime! That's a pretty high percentage of infomercial airtime on the weekends. In the past, for example during the 1980s, mostly reruns and movies took up the space that infomercials occupy today. However, two decades later instead of running reruns television stations are occupying that time with infomercials. |
