Filler: Difference between revisions

** '''Famous quotes''', fun facts or quick stories that are generally humorous in nature.

** '''Filler advertisements'''. Often, these will be "house ads," or advertisements created by an editor or advertising department selling the newspaper. Other times, stock ads – often, these are public service ads from the Ad Council – may be used.

* In radio, in the era where virtually every radio station had network news at the top of the hour – and was available only by live feed – many stations used instrumental songs to fill time remaining between the end of the last song and when the network news began. Stations often had a library of a few dozen generic-sounding records, each sounding somewhat like the genre they played, which were used to fill out the remaining hour, often if there wasn't a current song or recurrent that was short enough to fit the remaining time without cutting it off early. The jockey sometimes read announcements or previewed the next hour, but if he chose not to talk, the song would allow the jockey to avoid broadcasting "dead air" (silence).

** WPFM, an album-rock station in Panama City FL, broke for ABC news at the top of an hour in a 1977 broadcast. Afterwards, there was dead air for some three minutes before soft violin music started playing. Immediately, the DJ at the station finally returned to local and quipped "You learn something new everyday. Today it's 'don't go to the bathroom during ABC news'."