What Would Make Contesting Better?

During the worst of radio’s doldrums, radio contesting was as disheartening as its music or personality components. When promotions weren’t sidelined by budget or COVID concerns, they were almost always national contests with text-to-win codewords. 

Some stations and personalities pumped more excitement into text-to-win than others. For me, there was always something missing if you didn’t hear a winner (and in a national contest, you usually didn’t). There was also the station-after-station ubiquity of nearly identical contests, not to mention that the execution was often part of a lengthy package at :00 that also included “download our app” and “from the 1-800-INJURED studios.”

Over the last year, I feel like I’ve heard more excitement in station contesting and promotions. What I’ve encountered have mostly been proven concepts that might not have stood out a decade ago. Now, hearing some version of “Secret Sound,” “Beat the Bomb,” or “Mystery Voice” is exciting again. The standbys also generate contestants even in our “listeners don’t call radio stations for anything” age. They don’t just provide entertainment value for non-participants. They prove our listeners are still part of a shared experience.

As fall approaches, I’ve been thinking more of what I’d like to hear from radio contesting. In doing so, I’m looking for a place between “might motivate regular listeners” and “might make the radio experience better again for superfans.” But radio needs superfans right now.  And contesting always has to walk the line between “the few who will actually participate” and “those who play vicariously.”

Here are some thoughts, based on what I’m hearing (or not hearing now):

It’s good to hear quantity and quality. What separates good and bad radio listening experiences now is the sense that something is going on vs. the feeling of “nobody’s home and nothing is happening.” Not that long ago, the most promotionally active stations tried to have several activities going on at one time. If you are doing text-to-win, hearing people on the air winning something else offsets it. As we talk about those things that separate radio stations from streaming playlists, promotion is key.

Any payoff is better than text-to-nowhere. If contests are going to be national, hearing winners from across the country can be part of the bigness that national contesting was supposed to create for radio. We were often told, by those looking to justify national contests, that listeners don’t care about Powerball being national. And on the morning after, they still want to hear if somebody won, even if it wasn’t local. Text-for-cash has built in validity–listeners do need money, listeners do want to enter by text–we’re just undercutting it.

Any contest is more exciting when there’s more than one taking place in a market. I sometimes think that stations should cross-promote the contesting at sister outlets, just to create the feeling of radio having more to offer. Of course, that only works if stations aren’t simultaneously running the same group contest in different packages.

Australian radio is recognized for the strength of its contesting. Some of that has been structural — contests often play out over the course of nearly an entire hour from set-up to execution to teasing for the next hour. But it’s also tuning across the market dial and hearing something going on everywhere. Again, that’s an advertisement for radio. 

It’s mid-winter in Melbourne now, and currently there is something going on with almost every major outlet, even though most are relatively straight-ahead:

• CHR Fox 101.9 has both a “$5-Million Match” money song contest and a contest where two contestants will give their junker car to be crushed live at an event, with one getting $50,000.
• AC Smooth 91.5 is giving away a trip to the Cook Islands. N/T 3AW is giving away a 10-day trip to China. Both are “tell us why you want to go” website entries. Heritage rocker Triple-M is sending a listener on a “Rock the Boat” cruise with Australian bands as part of its “G.O.A.T. Song Countdown,” but also doing a $50,000 no-repeat workday.
• CHR Nova 100 is doing “Pay Your Bills.” In a throwback to our pre-texting days, bills are still submitted via website and names are called on-air. Nova 100 has also made local headlines for winning at least the initial round of the breakfast battle against KIIS-FM’s now syndicated Kyle & Jackie O show with the local show they replaced.
• Kyle & Jackie O are doing a “Split or Steal” contest running on KIIS-FM in both Melbourne and Sydney. “Split or Steal” is one of the psychology-based games that became popular in the mid-’00s, but that I encounter less these days.

I’m happiest when I hear the contest idea that I’m jealous of. It hasn’t happened much these days. The last big one was probably “$50 Grand Says It’s You” — the UK contest where listeners had to figure out if the on-air clues were about them. But I did hear one I liked in Melbourne. That was …

“The Greatest Prize of All Time.” Classic Hits Gold 104.3 is asking listeners, also through website submissions, to submit the things they don’t have time to do. How the station will find more time for you isn’t specified on-site, but an Instagram posting asks if listeners would want “a year of paid time off.” But the concept would also lend itself to a station looking to get greater mileage out of smaller sums of cash or sponsor prizes.

There should be more about the music. In the early ’00s, CKZZ (Z95.3) Vancouver, then briefly known as Crave 95.3, had a contest where listeners had to guess the intro of a song for a cash prize that decreased with every second, several years before the Song Pop app would bring a similar concept to social gaming. Recently, I’ve been returning to the UK’s Greatest Hits Radio regularly for Ken Bruce’s Popmaster quiz. (I printed a sample when I profiled Bruce last year.)

Music is a unifier, and while stations may not consider it their exclusive province anymore, it seems that there are missed opportunities to contest with music — especially Song of the Summer. WKRQ (Q102) Cincinnati did work the top summer songs contender into a listen-to-enter contest and had its best ratings month of the year.

Taylor Swift gave stations a focus last summer, and as the “Eras” tour continues, so do the promotions, from WXXL (XL106.7) Orlando to Ireland’s Beat 102-103. Part of Country radio’s resurgence last year was certainly thought to be the resumption of touring and ticket giveaways.

Contestants Matter. Bruce is particularly good at getting contestants to tell their life stories, even in their first nervous moments on the air. It’s a reminder that the fun of playing along isn’t just the game itself but the investment in the contestants. That’s something else lost in text-to-win.

Packaging Matters. “No-Repeat Workday,” when there’s a contesting element attached, isn’t supposed to pay off very often. But AC CHFI Toronto is doing its version for Taylor Swift tickets if you hear a repeat, making it the “No-Repeat Guarantee (Taylor’s Version).”

Earlier this spring, Strategic Research Solutions’ Hal Rood called ours a “new golden age of contesting.” Rood and Point-to-Point Marketing’s Tim Bronsil, his collaborator on the What Workers Want study, have the advantage of being involved directly in clients’ marketing efforts, not all of which are evident to the casual out-of-market streamer. And not all of the contesting that excites listeners, they noted, is coming from radio. I’m happy just to see things moving ahead, and hope there’s more to write about in the fall.