chinnyhill10 wrote:
Of course competitions shouldn't be rigged and people defrauded, but anyone who has worked in radio knows you have to bend the rules from time to time to make for better listening. "Let's go to lucky line 69" when the station only has 3 lines into the studio. I had a colleague who used his girlfriend as a stooge caller on competitions. She would always give the wrong answer. Reason was that once the listeners heard someone on-air giving a wrong answer they would call in. It would just kickstart things on slow days therefore making for better listening.
saved me a long post of my own. Especially on smaller shows - where your competition prizes are provided by a PR who won't get you copies of the music you need to play to have a good show unless their competition goes well. Most radio presenters don't want to have to deal with the insufferably dull public participation of phone-ins - Dave in Watford saying 'a few helloes' for longer than it took him to prove his ineptness in a pop quiz on the Ken Bruce show every morning is one example. But it has to be done. If Joe Public was any good on radio, he'd be doing it for a living.
Anyone who has ever tried to drum up interest in the West Midlands for a free copy of the Smashing Pumkin's guitarist's ponderous solo album will know what I'm talking about, though I think only myself and Neil Kulkarni have ever been in that position. Not as if the question was that hard either: "What band is Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha a member of?" - this when our rajar was very healthy for the Sunday night slot and the Smumpkins were the band of the hour. Ho Hum.
Oh and
"Hello?"
"Hi can you play Celine Dion for Amanda and tell her Jim loves her very much?"
"Well, this is a specialist music show, after midnight they take requests, but my next three tracks are by Belle and Sebastian, Bolt Thrower and Ben Folds, or there's some Squarepusher coming up if you'd like me to dedicate any of those? Failing that I'll get Claire to play it when I hand over, so you can have it at about five past twelve""
"Awwwwwwwwww, it's her BIRTHDAY! And we've got to go to bed because she's got work in the morning"
"Yes, but this station plays Celine Dion every hour of the week except these three hours of Sunday night. Do you have the celine Dion CD at home?"
"Yes"
"With respect I might suggest that if this is a matter of some urgency, you could always put the CD on and tell her you love her yourself...?"
"This station is fucking shit <click....brrrrr......>"
I never really settled in at commercial radio.
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