As with any profession there are phrases and words that those of us in the industry take for granted and expect everyone to understand. Hopefully this list will cover some of the main ones.

 ANNCR Announcer, male or female voice delivering the announcement of the commercial, tag lines or strapline. Also ANNO.

Copy Tape: A commercial that is licensed for an additional station. The voice over (V/O) gets paid twice, so the radio station or production house have to charge extra. (usually around 50%-70% of their rate card)

MVO: Male Voice Over

CVO Child Voice Over

FVO: Female Voice Over

FX Sound Effect (also SFX)

ISDN High quality lines for sending and receiving audio. Most Voice Sessions use ISDN technology

MCPS Music Music that can be used on advertising by purchasing special licence

Minidisc: Digital recording, but inferior to CD or DAT as it compresses the Audio.

Positioning Statement Like a strapline but making a statement of position in the marketplace. For example "The counties only manufacturer of heavy duty widgets"

OTH : Opportunities to hear. The number of times the average listener will hear your commercial over a specified time period

Over written A script that has too many words for the allocated time.

PRS Performing Rights Society. Responsible for distributing money to musicians from the fee radio stations pay them for playing any music.

RAB: Radio Advertising Bureau. In the U.K. the RAB works at encouraging Ad Agencies and big brands to use radio advertising.

RACC:   The Radio Advertising Clearance Centre, clears certain categories of clients and scripts for broadcast.

Relicence: The V/O licences his work for a twelve month period  (sometimes shorter periods for celebrity or specialist voices), so commercials running past this should be re-licensed

ROT: Recorded off transmission. Radio Stations are required by law to record everything broadcast and submit it to the Radio Authority if a complaint is made.

SFX: Sound Effects. What other sort of effects would you have on a radio commercial?

Strapline: A company slogan or statement which ties together all of the commercial.

Tag: A few words, at most a sentence, that changes while the rest of the script remains the same. For example, a script telling everyone about a sale that ends "Sale starts Monday" could have tags made saying "Sale now on" and "Sale must end  Sunday". Each tag change obviously has to be the same length so it can be edited in. For Tag Change rate to apply the commercials should be recorded at the same time, otherwise the full commercial rate should apply.