Shady Radio Money Giveaway

Cafe Society
1

I ran into an unusal situation this past weekend. For the last week or so, my morning radio station (up here in SF) has been having a Huge Money Giveaway!!! which involved a prize of $10K every hour (during the normal work day–so, like 8am-5pm or something), with the total eventual prize amount given away equalling $1M. This struck me as incredibly generous for a station that’s not even #1 in ratings for the area.

But a couple things struck me as a little weird. First, you never heard any of the winning calls; usually, for radio giveaways, I’m used to hearing “You’re our 21st caller” and then hearing the person on the phone respond (“Whoooooo!!!”). But in this case, they’re giving away the money, allegedly, but we never heard hide nor hair about the winner (not even a “Congratulations to Francie from Fremont, our big winner this hour. Be sure to stay tuned for more Big Money!”).

Second, the phone number to dial was an 866 #, not the normal station number. Also, when they announced the time to call, they would say “Be the Xth Nationwide caller and win…” etc. Now, I just assumed they assigned a # specifically to the contest to put less strain on their phone banks, and I suppose Nationwide might be a good way to pitch the contest to anyone who doesn’t live locally but streams the station off the internet. Still, it was different than what I’d been used to.

Thirdly, they would announce when the contest would start, but they would always appear to be timing the contest announcement to the second: “OK, be prepared to call for the next Big Money Giveaway just 40 seconds from now”. Why so specific? Why not just say “Call now” when they’re ready. Again, no biggee, but a little strange.

Then, I flew down to SoCal to visit my family, and as I was scanning through the stations, I heard the same Big Money Giveaway announcement–different DJ, but the same general text: $10K/hour, $1M total, same phone #, everything!

So it occurred to me that even though neither station divulged the specifics of the contest, it would appear that the BMG was not exclusive to that station in that market, but was being run (rather clandestinely) by other stations (possibly sisters owned by a single parent company) too, with the result being that you were competing against perhaps tens of thousands of other listeners from all over the state (or time zone, or country), with everyone calling that same #.

That’s why they need to time things to the second (so all the giveaways are synchronized out of “fairness”), why they have the toll-free # and the “Nationwide” annoucement, and why you never hear the winners (“Where you from, caller?” “Boise! Wooohoooo!!!” WTF?!?).

This struck me as particularly shady. Has anyone ever heard of this or similar prize giveaways that are secretly coordinated between multiple markets?

2

Nothing’s local in radio anymore. :frowning:

3

I don’t know if you’d call it shady, but yes, its common to have this sort of a giveaway not by that one station but by the group that owns many stations across the country, and one winner out of all the stations per hour. As you said, a local station alone giving away one million dollars isn’t feasible, but Clear Channel or whoever doing so makes sense.

4

Yeah. At most there might be some dropped-in commentary by somebody local, plus pre-recorded weather and traffic- the rest, including the giveaway- is broadcast on sibling/clone stations all over the place.

see: ClearChannel

ETA- what Wee Bairn said.

5

It happens all the time. A group of radio stations, usually under the same management umbrella, run a big contest. Everyone calls in at a set time and the winner is within the area of any one of the stations. It not even all that secret – the “nationwide caller” is a clue, and I’m sure there’s fine print somewhere (like on the station’s website) that spells everything out.

This really has been standard procedure for at least a decade.

Nothing particularly shady about it. The prizes are being given out, just not locally. But callers from the local area have the same chance as callers from other areas. If they get through, they win.

6

This sounds exactly like something Clear Channel did a few years ago. While your local station in San Francisco was advertising the big money giveaway between 8-5, my local station in the Midwest was advertising it between 10-7, etc. etc.

So exactly at 8:31 a.m. (Pacific), 9:31 a.m. (Mountain), 10:31 (Central) and 11:31 (Eastern) every Clear Channel station told their listeners to be the 20th caller.

IIRC they didn’t publicize that all their stations were participating, but they didn’t really keep it a secret, either. Clandestine, perhaps, but no more shady than going to your local McDonalds and hoping to get Boardwalk in their Monopoly giveaway.

7

No cite, but I read it in an interview with a DJ. He said, “You don’t really think we sit down and count the callers, do you? We pick one of our target demographic and there’s your winner.”

8

Counting to 20 doesn’t seem too hard. And how do they know the demographic of a random caller?

9

They have a PA or intern who fields all the calls, when they have someone who is the right demo and will be entertaining on the air - there is your winner. It doesn’t matter if they are caller #1, #20 or #1000.

10

Thanks, I knew they screened calls for call in shows, I didn’t know they also screened when calling in to win something.

11

It’s true. At the station I work now, we run contests to seek the 9th caller. We don’t count–we start with the first blinking light, greet them, and let them speak. If it’s a “hi,” they probably won’t make for good radio. If it’s a “hey are you doing a contest,” we can usually do without.

If your first words are “OH MY GOD AM I THE NINTH CALLER!?!?” and you sound like a woman 18-34, you’re a prime candidate to be the winner.

12

I’m glad my opinion of commercial radio couldn’t sink lower, because it never even occured to me that the ostensible selection of the Xth caller was stage-managed.

13

Shocking! This is going to be bigger than payola and the quiz show scandals combined if it ever gets out. :slight_smile:

Seriously though, it is a bit of a surprise to hear that.

14

Well, if it helps, not everyone practices it universally. I think it’s unfair, and I’ve been known to actually take the ninth blinking light and award them the prize. If they don’t make for good radio, I just don’t air their call.

Surprising? Yeah. Unfair? Usually. Scandalous? Hardly. :wink:

15

Sounds similar to how contestants are picked for The Price is Right. They don’t call random audience members up to contestants row in a lottery type fashion but rather scan/chat/interview/hand-pick audience members while they wait in line outside the studio looking for a variety of interesting people to put on the show.

16

Thanks for all the comments. My car was radioless for years (and before that, strictly NPR/jazz/classically-tuned), so my exposure to regular FM commercial radio was limited for a long time. I guess I referred to it as “shady” because there wasn’t any kind of disclosure as to the scope of the contest (as opposed to McD’s or whatever, where you know it’s a franchise-based, nationwide game).

I’m also surprised by the Nth caller “protocol” because I remember as a kid (back in the rotary days) calling my radio station and I would actually hear “You’re the 6th caller. <click>” so I assumed all the calls were answered as such until they reached Caller N.

17

IANAlawayer, but I would guess there’s a good chance it’s illegal. There are some pretty firm laws about prize and contest giveaways, including that you have to publish rulesand follow them. There is a whole industry – the companies are called “fulfillment” agencies – which organize and run these kinds of promotions for other companies.

18

A friend of mine has a sister who lives in LA. She had lived there many years and wanted to get on the price is right. However, she heard that the selection process wasn’t random.

She had a vacation day and went up there. She wore a Montana State University T-shirt and was…in her words…very ‘bouncy’ and enthusaistic. She had all sorts of other items I can’t remember but it was mainly stressing that she was not local, was bouncy and positive, young and well endowed.

Sure enough…she got on.

Din’t win anything cuz she played stupid :smiley: but that’s another story.

19

IANAL either, but my WAG is that this is somehow legal. We receive annual training on prize giveaways, payola/plugola, regulatory requirements, and a host of other things, but the call-in-to-win situation is rarely covered.

I’m guessing that if it were illegal, someone would have taken issue with it by now. It seems to be long-standing practice among co-workers who have decades of on-air time under their belt, nation-wide. Either that, or it’s just too difficult to prove foul play.

20

Just ask the guys who actually went to prison or lost their jobs because of payola. They knew it was illegal, but until they were charged, everyone went on keepin’ on.