How to identify a “Prestream ad” – some stations place one (or more) ads in front of the startup of a stream, which is what “Prestream ads” are intended to identify for the quality rating purposes.
If you click on Listen and hear an ad, that doesn’t mean that it’s a prestreaming ad. Figuring this out can be quite tricky. Here is how to sort it out – if you think you just heard a prestreaming ad, stop the stream and start it again. Prestream ads always start at the beginning of the ad. If you hear the same ad again from the start (or possibly another ad – but from the start), that’s a prestream ad. If the prestream ad has a video component, that’s a prestream ad….. maybe…. :)
Here is where it gets dicey – the more sophisticated players know if the radio station is currently in a break. Advertising on a radio station doesn’t mean your ads will be heard on the Internet – quite the contrary due to the issue of AFTRA royalty payments. So if the station is in a commericial or news break, you could hear what sounds like a prestream ad – but it is just a substituted ad being played on the Internet. Those internet-only ads will continue to play until the signal returns from the radio station feed. (If the station is in a sports preemption, those intenet-only ads will go for hours :))
As the players get more and more sophisticated, this will become more of a problem. The player may look at your IP address and decide an advertiser doesn’t want to pay to reach you, or that your listening patterns suggest you aren’t a good prospect and they’ll not stream an ad to you, but will to other people.
