Do you remember when you used to only be able to call stations or write a letter. Now you can email or text or blog – and a huge proportion of normal phone calls, of course, come from mobiles – and often get answered by the presenter. It’s brought radio even closer than it already was.
We get thousands of texts every day. Sometimes in responses to things we say – or competitions, but sometimes, well, just random ones: “I very rarely wash my hands after a wee but will turn the tap on and off to give the illusion i hav, Daz from london”. Or from people who just have to tell us something: “Thanks so much 4 playing song + radio. Am now very late 4 meeting as still listening to song!”
We have a 25p charge on the bounceback to our texts, although of course we only get a fraction of that thanks to all the other costs involved. It does mean though that we can bounce back a message to listeners to say the text has been received – and maybe also a bit of info from us.
With competitions, recent coverage has maybe understandably started to make listeners question whether or not things are run fairly. We’ve installed a special text system to make sure that things are rock solid – and checkable – so that any concerns whatsoever are addressed quickly.
I think most listeners realise that commercial radio stations do not get any benefit at all of the TV licence fee (which also funds BBC radio, of course) - so they do need to generate money to pay the bills. And if that can be via programme elements which listeners enjoy participating in, it’s a double whammy – and probably better than having too many ads, isn’t it? Alternatively, of course, we could ask for each listener to write us a cheque each year for £139.50, but that’s a system which does not seem really to be gaining in popularity.
We’ve just started being able to take MMS (pic messages) on our shortcode, rather than having to give out the silly long number. That was great at V – with people texting us pics for our site.
Do you think generally before you text anyone because of the cost? Are you sending fewer or more than a year ago? At what rate would people not want to talk to us? What sort of competitions should a station do that that are worth paying for? Do listeners want more info from us by text? What are we missing when it comes to interactivity – and competitions? We’re going to be trying a few more of the premium text based competitions as an experiment. We know when used elsewhere, they attract huge numbers of entrants – so they must be popular? Will they go down well here at Golden Square? Let’s see.
And a final word from an SMS from Darren on the M25. Hopefully not whilst driving: “How important do you have to be, to be assassinated instead of murdered?”
Guy
