A Car an Hour

Continuing the contests memories. KAAY signed on September (Labor Day weekend as I remember.) 1962. I was Program Director at KXLR. With KAAY, a total of four stations in the market were top 40. We had heard on the street, that KAAY was going to give away a car. So, we got our crack sales department to go out and trade out a car to give away. KAAY's contest was to give away a car a day for a month and ended the promotion with a car an hour for 24 hours. Mike McCormick (PD at the time) always thought big even for 1962. The run of the mill contests, the news tip,etc. were usually small dollars. Mike D. remembers:

I love listening to old airchecks where the prize is something like a dollar
and a half. They'd give the winner's name and street address out on the air.
Sometimes their phone number. In the '60s they used to have contests where
the object was to go knock on people's doors looking for something or asking
if this was the secret house. You'd get shot today. The "Mr. Whisper"
contests were popular too, or guess the record played at a different speed.
Sometimes they'd give way the entire Top 40 of that week on 45s. That must
have set the stations back a bundle.