It’s a Top 40 “basic” mechanic: “Crunch & Roll,” which means that in a song-to-song music sweep, you want to hit the NEXT song, THEN talk, not “start early” over the end of the first song, and then continue blabbing over the intro of the next song.

It matters because when that next song begins, then you start, it “turns the page” – meaning that the listener can FEEL the Forward Movement.  (Momentum.)

When you start early, we don’t feel that page turn.  No momentum.  And a station without good forward flow will get beat by a station that HAS it almost every time.  There are some exceptions, but very few.

This concentration on Momentum (not pace; that’s a different thing) is most evident in the movie world, where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg ushered in a totally new era in the seventies with movies that ALWAYS churned relentlessly forward.  (Think Star Wars, or Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

Never get so “comfortable” that you forget about Momentum.  The world moves ahead faster all the time.  (Remember your first cell phone; your first computer? Ick.)