Saturday, August 16, 2008

What are your memories of contests?

What contests do you remember from any station? Particularly from the top 40 days.
I mentioned yesterday, the Hi-Lo game which many stations ran in different forms. At KAAY we ran so many different contests it's hard to recall specific contests. Many were seasonal related. Like at Thanksgiving there was a turkey shoot. The listener on the phone was ask to load their imaginary shotgun and shoot at the turkey. There was a game cart which had random hits and misses. The listener had to trust the rotation of the cart. The jock didn't know what was going to come up.

Now what contests do you remember? Just click on the "comments" word below, type in you contest memory. then scroll down and put the dot in anonymous circle and then click on "publish your comment". It will appear in a few days. Your comments will keep this blog going.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A. J., I wasn't much for contests, but my wife was! When she was the Chief Telephone Operator for a local hospital, she'd call across the block to WABB here in Mobile, AL and would win GOBS of stuff...she had to do it in her name, her sisters' names, her mom's name, friends' names...because she got through so much, they had to limit winners to once every thirty days! The knew what was going on, since they recognized her voice so much (she's got a GREAT telephone voice!)

Needless to say, when she left that job, she stopped calling...I guess WABB was relieved that someone ELSE could win some prizes! Bud, Mobile, AL

Anonymous said...

My memory is not as good as it used to be, but I do remember the contests on KAAY. The "For the People" bumper strip contest is the one that is uppermost on my mind. It was a classic. In Pine Bluff, Buddy Dean conducted a contest in 1978 or 1979, where the station was giving away $1,410.00 (for 1410 AM, KOTN's frequency). That year he got a bit miffed, because after only a few clues, someone found the prize document underneath a mailbox at a street corner. Needless to say, I was driving all over Pine Bluff (as were many others) to attempt to locate it. Unfortunately, it wasn't me that found it.

When I was running a movie theatre in Pine Bluff in 1978-1980, I was also working part-time at KCLA "Razorback Country" there in the city. I conducted a contest at the theatre, with none other than a Mr. A.J. Lindsey, where patrons received a ballot at the theatre and numerous locations, and voted for who they thought would win the six top academy awards. The grand prize was a complete waterbed outfit from A.J.'s Waterbed Store. There were other prizes too. The promotion/contest won a circuit award from Commonwealth Theatre Circuit (now defunct). It was a great contest. We got hundreds of entries and it was successful in large part because of A.J. Little did I know at the time that our paths would cross again years later, when I began doing research for graduate school on KAAY. We just never know, do we?

Contests with radio stations are great ways to promote listener involvement. I wish the stations would do more in this area.