You are driving, heading off to work, the radio is on to your usual drivetime station and for just a moment you feel transported. It’s as if you were at a carnival, listening to the scream of barkers.

The carnival you’re listening to is what passes for much radio advertising these days. Nothing subtle here, lots of shouting and hard-sell, and typically ads for such things as incontinence pills or turn-in-your-gold-jewelry-and-make-a-few-bucks retailers.

You could be shocked. You’re not. You’re not because you’ve become used to it, which is the sad part.

What’s happened to radio advertising such that we seem not to notice anymore?

It’s gotten worse, and it’s gotten worse over the same period that other media have seen big jumps in the quality of their creative. That’s certainly true for the internet but also for out of home, where it’s led to an influx of advertisers who once looked down on the medium.

Radio is paying a price, but it’s not in listenership. According to the National Association of Broadcasters, radio reaches more than 236 million adult Americans each week, more than the internet. While radio has seen some decline, it’s slight, and at a time when print media has seen readership tumble.

Listeners are even sticking it out through commercials. A 2006 report by the research firm Coleman Insights found that most stations retain more than 90 percent of the audience they start a commercial break with.

Such listener loyalty makes the lack of attention to effective radio advertising just baffling.

But the price is very real. Advertisers aren’t getting the response from listeners they deserve and radio stations aren’t getting the money they should for those radio spots.

“The penalty radio is paying for not focusing on creative is in ad revenues. Stations have to keep selling new advertisers to replace the ones they lose when the ads don’t work,” says Roy Williams, author of the “Wizard of Ads” trilogy, three books about radio creative and copywriting, and owner of an Austin agency that specializes in radio creative.

“Radio rates would easily double or triple if advertisers were consistently making a lot of money when they bought radio ads.”

So why is so much radio creative bad?

There are several reasons, and each can be traced back to one factor, money.

At agencies, the real profits are in producing television spots. Radio is less expensive to produce, which means it gets less attention.

“For big national agencies, TV is a big profit center. There’s just not as much money to be made producing radio commercials,” says Chuck DuCoty, COO of Iowa-based NRG Media, which owns more than 40 radio stations

Where the creative is done at the station, cash-strapped broadcasters are all about pushing business, which means getting the contract signed and moving on to the next sale. There’s less concern about executing great advertising for their clients.

“It’s not the account executive’s fault,” explains Brian Rhodes, commercial production director for Emmis Communications station WKQX/Chicago. “Management is pushing them so hard to make budget they don’t have time to worry about really servicing clients.”

And of course stations have been cutting staff, which has often led to consolidation of production and copywriting functions, with the work handed off to employees with little or no experience in creating effective ads.

But of course, as is so often the case, radio as a medium offers an opportunity to advertisers and agencies and stations who do care about and work at producing great advertising. There’s that much more opportunity to stand out.

And they don't have to pay more for it, unlike TV, observes Williams.

“The difference on TV between high and low budget is night and day,” he says “By comparison, there is no advantage to people with huge money when it comes to radio production.”