A car dealership sends out sale announcements with contests. They say no purchase necessary and everybody is a cash winner. You could win up to something like a million dollars. The trick is the enclosed scratch off has prizes from a dollar to maybe five. The million dollar prize is for a nation wide online contest that that requires something is purchased. A very deceitful sales promotion at the least.
Okay, then, can someone provide a cite that the practice is illegal?
I probably didn’t express myself as well as I could have.
While it may or may not be illegal, the guys doing payola in the late 50’s-early 60’s did it. Just because they didn’t get prosecuted until after they had been doing it for years didn’t make it legal.
I’ll be interested in whether it is or is not illegal. I have no doubt that the contests are structured to be legal. What they say on the radio may or may not be what the actual printed prize rules are.
I’m not trying to be contentious, really.
Oh, I know. My point was, the guys doing payola knew it was illegal, they were just hoping not to be caught. This seems to be a more widespread phenomenon that isn’t really trying to be concealed. Seems to me that if it were something to be covered up, it would’ve blown up in court years ago.
But again, I don’t know anymore about the legal side of it than you do. And I, too, am curious.
Hi guys - I’m new - so if I’m talking out of turn, tell me.
I work for a radio station cluster (two stations) and we had (not the word had) a program director that would “pick the demo” - aka - a woman 18-34.
This is against not only our “SAP” (strategic action plan) - it is against FCC violation - and would never be condoned or put up with. It was hinted by a departing employee that this was happening - the VP of HR appeared at our office the next day, and voila - that station is back to taking the actual 9th caller.
As for the “nationwide contests” - yup - they happen - usually by stations that are not highly rated and therefore cannot budget or garner sponsorship for big contests on their own.
We are currently giving away $25,000.00 to people for paying their bills - they have 9 minutes to call then their name is called.
We also are giving away $25,000.00 on the other station when the person we call answers the phone with that day’s “phrase that pays”.
Our contests are not as simple as “be the ninth caller” and often time when we play, we don’t have to give the money away because the person doesn’t call in time, or they answer the phone wrong. But we would rather have a winner because it makes for better radio, and better radio gets us better ratings, more advertisers, etc.
But I want to also say something. Our station is LOCAL. Each station has a nationally syndicated morning show (from 6 AM to 10 AM) but other than that - every segment, ever on-air announcement, even most of the commercials are very much done by local on-air personalities.
We are not an independent station, we are owned by a national group (not Clear Channel) but we run that station, within reason, locally. We are active in the community, we make decisions at a local level, and we are not some pre-recorded, pre-fabricated site. Of course, we are also #1 in our particular markets, and if that changed, we would have to answer for it.
But please don’t give up hope on us yet. There are a lot of stations that are local, are real, and are good. At least, in my opinion.
Thanks 
**melodyharmonius **, it is never inappropriate here to jump in on a discussion where you have specific personal knowedge.
I done a little searching so far and haven’t found much specific, but I’m gonna go look to FCC rules. Thank you melodyharmonius.
I did find a site of a sweepstakes law firm that says this in a section called “Sweepstakes Basics” (bolding is mine):
I’m not entirely certain the kind of radio promotion we are discussing should be categorized as a “sweepstakes”. It could conceivably be a “contest”, which is defined as “a game of skill”. Or another form of “game”. As far as I have seen, all these kinds of things are defined as one of the 3.
Not at all, and welcome!
Not to be intimidating on your first day posting, but do you have a cite? I’d like to bring it up in our next station meeting if this is indeed the case. Our PD has pushed us in the past to pick the demo and make sure we air the call, and if this is the case, it’s possible he may not be aware, and I’d like to bring it up.
We’re a local station, as well. We’re a CC station, though, with a live morning show and all. Only one of our dayparts is tracked from another city, and oddly enough, it’s the least popular (among the staff and the listeners I’ve talked to, anyway, I haven’t seen our latest book).
Here is a rather vague statement on the FCC website that generally supports what I said.
Hence, if a contest announces that they will take the 9th caller, and that is on their website rules or content or on-air content anywhere, and they do NOT take the 9th caller - we have the classic “station meet hefty fine” situation.
Like I said, when it was pointed out that our newer PD was not taking the 9th caller - immediate measures were taken to change that.
And I’m with CXR, atomicbadgerrace.
I think most of those radio show call-in shows are rigged in a way…even when they are just giving away free tickets to a local concert or whatever.
I listen to a show on the way to and from work - have been listening for years…and I cannot recall ONCE where a guy won a prize. It is ALWAYS a young, female listener who wins and oddly the DJ’s are all young single guys. Plus, they could say, “the 1,497th caller will win!” and two seconds later, BAM - another 20-something girl will be screaming, “Wow! I am the 1,497th caller?!”
Yep, because you can well imagine they counted carefully and most certainly 1,496 other people have called in the last two seconds.
I used to win in a “real” radio show call in contest quite often…it was a local talk show that probably had 14 people listening to it at any given time and they were so thrilled to have someone actually phone in, they really did play the game and ask the question you had to answer to win.
I don’t know whether the contest in the OP is the same as I heard, but on the radio station I was listening to they said it was a national contest and not just one for the radio station listeners. And I’m across the country from the OP.
Huh. I’ve called up to radio stations for contests, and gotten what I would expect: the person answering saying “94.7, you’re caller 12, keep trying.” That was before I said a word.
When I was a kid I participated in many Z100 (WHTZ) call-in contests, mostly for concert tickets. This is the kind of station with an audience large enough to do regular 100th-caller contests, so maybe they can’t get away with shenanigans like a smaller station might. Whenever I would call, some lowly intern would answer and breathlessly exclaim “Zee ninety-two!” click
I must have called into dozens of those and always got in the 80s or 90s, but never 100. 
Since they always hung up before I could get a word in, I assume they were honestly counting.
I still get a kick out of that one radio contest that was giving away a new Toyota.
I mean a new toy Yoda.
I worked in radio for 20 years, but that was 1966 to 1986, and I’m sure the FCC rules have loosened incredibly since then. But it was very tight at that time, and we were drilled over and over about not conducting a contest that could possibly be construed by the commmission as a lottery.
The FCC published a pamphlet that described “the three legs of a lottery,” which were Prize, Chance and Consideration.
That is, if the person taking part had to pay for something which qualified them for a contest of chance, such as a drawing, and were awarded a prize, then it was a lottery. If any of the three elements weren’t present, there was no lottery.
Examples: listener puts free window or bumper sticker on their vehicle, station representative drives around spotting said stickers and awarding prizes to vehicles bearing them. Perfectly legit.
BUT: Listener buys a station t-shirt and is awarded a prize if spotted wearing it - big no-no.
I’m aware of the latter, since a competitor in our market tried it, and we told them to knock it off, or we’d turn them in.
Actually they were tank tops with a “Listen to the Music” theme to back when the Doobie Brothers tune of the same name was popular, so you know how long ago that was.