Anyone in the broadcast industry here? What's the point of radio contests anymore?

Question

At least the trivia ones - like, name such-and-such artist's first album, biggest hit single, etc.

At one point, this was dependent upon your actual knowledge.

Now *anyone* can look it up on the internet in seconds - so the 'contest' is who can get to their keyboard fast enough??

Anyone in the broadcast industry here know the answer?

Answer 1

They usually make it easy so everyone has a chance.  When it usually comes to big prizes,  thats when it usually gets tougher.  Tim

Answer 2

I'm working on getting in but I know why! For one underwritters give out free stuff in stations for promo. Anyway also its to get more listeners and give an image drop. (this is when a station gaves its image with give aways and small snippits of music they play.

Answer 3

I'm not in the broadcast industry right this second but I'll answer it.

People like free shwag and gets people listening and talking by giving away say two tickets to a popular concert by being the 5th caller.

But on the trivia, it's a way to make it seem harder to get that prize (as most aren't too swift on searching as proven time and time again on here).... plus in some areas, a knowledge test is actually required to win a prize

Answer 4

Good question - a star for you!

They have the contests for the same reason they always did: to get as many people to listen as possible during a particular time period, in order to boost ratings during that time period. Boosted ratings = more ad dollars!

But you've got a good point, even though you may not know it.

There are only a few big companies that own about 80% of the stations. There's an average of 2-3 of them represented in each of the bigger markets (1-75) with several stations belonging to each. So, if they've got 40% of the stations, by extenson, they'll get 40% of the listeners and 40% of the dollars. Roughly...

If you're going to get your 40% regardless, why have a contest? And in fact, most big multi-week promotions that were worth lots of money are down. Way down. So they have these little trivia things to keep people happy - during a particular time period of course ;<)

-a guy named duh