Those radio call-in contests where you can win concert tickets, etc., for being “caller # 99” – does the DJ, etc., really pick up the phone and rattle off “sorry, you’re caller # 3… # 27… # 65… # 88”, or do they typically just count off about 3 - 4 minutes, pick up whatever random line they feel like answering, and start the “Congratulations!” spiel?
Any radio DJ’s out there? What has your experience been?
Thanks!
Not a radio DJ, but when I was a kid I used to call into contests on Z100 all the time. The guy would always pick up and go “number 97! click” and then I’d go “dammit!”
I wonder if he just said “97” 99 times to make all the losers feel good.
I can’t speak for all of them, but I’m sure some of them do.
Back in high school I won some tickets and I was telling someone that I was caller 1,3,5,7 and 10 (the DJ picked up and said “You’re called number #”) each time. The person I called mentioned that his sister was caller number 2,4,6,8 and 9 for the same tickets.
Actually, I think I just answered your question…yes, they do count the calls because for every call in thing I’ve called in for they answer the calls with “You’re caller number #.” Of course, I’m sure there are some that just pull the phone(s) off the hook for a few minutes and then answer one of them as caller the winning number.
Well, they would have to get the earlier callers off the line somehow, so just not answering for a while is not really an option. I guess you could have a machine to kick earlier callers off after a few rings, but that would leave you with a bunch of pissed off listeners.
Of course, the answering of the of the first 98 calls might be done by a machine with a recorded voice.
It’s usually not a number as high as 99, either. Most of the ones I’ve heard have been somewhere in the vicinity of 10.
I’ve called and been given a non-winning number as well. I’d guess they’re required to do that, but I’d also guess some DJs skip a bunch of the numbers, at least some times. Especially if they’re station 97.3, and are always supposed to take the 97th caller. That would old pretty quick.
I understood they had a panel board with all the incoming calls represented by lights in a row, any one of which you could press to get a connection. Which is why they talk about the board “lighting up” when they touch a hot issue. For talk back, the producers prescreen the callers, then tell the on-air personality to pick up No 7, and ask him about his experience with the DMV or whatever.
For competitions, they obviously can’t go with the first caller all the time, because that depends on idiosyncracies of telcom switching arrangements, which might always bias in favour of a particular suburb or something. So picking a number further down the list was sufficiently random to be fair, but still required sufficient haste to create a sense of urgency and excitement.
A DJ friend of mine played No Matter What by Badfinger one day for a contest since we were talking about that song the previous evening. The first caller who could name the band would be the winner of a free dinner at a local eatery. After about an hour of bad answers, he gave up and said I won even though I didn’t call. The food wasn’t half bad.
Granted, I was in radio briefly, and many years ago, but I would always use a low double digit number, like caller 12, and actually give the prize to whatever call I took 12th.
SFC Schwartz
Ditto here, and yes, we did actually punch the button for each line and say “You’re caller #1 [click]… You’re caller #2 [click]… etc.” It took all of ten seconds to get to the winner. We only had six inbound lines though, so we had to clear all of them before that person even had a chance.
In the past, when KISS-99.5 FM (San Antonio, Tx) ran contests for high-dollar prizes, the winner had to be the 99th caller. Now the 99th texter is the winner. Example: KISS Cowboys Party Bus.
Disclosure: I have no financial involvement with that radio station or any of its advertisers.
I forget what radio station it was back in the mid-80s or so, but they were in Chicago. Might have been WMET, which until 1983 or so, was a rock station. They had a bulk pickup and drop arrangement with 10 inbound lines. They were at 95.5, so if the DJ said be the 95th caller, all they had to do was watch for all lines to light up with incoming calls then punch the answer all / drop all button nine times, then pick line 5 and say “You’re a winner!” Probably didn’t take more than 30 seconds to pick up and lose those first 94 calls.
Our high school station had just one line, so the DJ would keep it low like “Be caller number seven!”
A couple of years ago, I heard a Sunday night talk show DJ go through 99 calls on air. It took about 5 minutes. For most of them they were just:
‘Caller 12! hi! whats your name?’
“Hi! I’m Justin”
and were cut off, the DJ talked to a few. For one caller (I can’t remember how far in she was) he chatted a bit, then told her ‘as soon as I cut you off, I want you to put the phone down, pick up, and hit redial as fast as you can.’ She got number 96 on the second call.
I have no idea how the phone system was operated, they probably had 3-5 lines but It was neat to hear the guy play with the format.
Many years ago our local channel 97 said that they were asked by the phone company to stop their high-number call-ins because it totally messed up the phone company’s switching equipment.
I’ve never even been able to get through … just busy signals for me.
My friend won a ski holiday from a UK radio station… she was nowhere near caller 99 (or whatever) but because she could do the right excited squeak she got chosen. They told her she’d won off-air, and then made her pretend to find out “live”, so she could give the appropriate whoops of delight.
Makes sense from an entertainment perspective I guess… rather than have a dour mechanic called Barry saying “oh right, ta very much” when he wins, you’d rather have a perky young lady shrieking “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE I WON, THIS IS THE BEST MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!”.
It’s also not unknown for the production team to ask their mates to call in when there are not many callers. A friend’s sister works for a very popular Sunday morning magazine show in the UK where this happens all the time… she’ll often be texting people she knows to boost the number of calls coming in (they get told off if they flat out fake the winners, but they can “encourage” people to call in as long as they are not directly part of the show).
Former radio jock here. What you’re describing is essentually right on the money – for larger stations, they sometimes have an intern or other non-air staff answer each call and declare which number the caller is, but it ultimately comes down to either A) the guidelines set forth by the station as it relates to the prize being awarded, or B) the whims of the DJ. During the overnight shift I worked for a time, prior to taking an afternoon drive slot, I found myself giving prizes away on much lower numbered calls, meaning it behooved me to tell the person calling which number they were. In some cases, it was literally one guy calling repeatedly. The afternoon drive contests were better attended, so I usually went with higher numbers to give lots of people a chance to get in on the action.
So long as the prize could be verified to have been awarded to someone, the advertisers and sales staff never said Word #1 to me about the logistics of the giveaway.
Former radio station intern/non-air staff…yes. We had to answer the phone whatever number of times and then when it was the right number caller patch them through to the DJ.
We only counted up to seven… “no 1” hang up, “no 2” hang up and so on till 7. Depending on how crappy the giveaway was sometimes you never got seven calls.