RULES FOR LISTENERS?

I was listening to a local talk station the other day and they ran a bumper before the show started that said "our only rule is that you can only call once a week."  Really?  Why are you limiting your most passionate and loyal listener to only calling once per week?  Who cares how often they call?  That's the call screeners job to weed them out if they aren't compelling.  If they are smart, articulate and compelling, let them call all they want and put them on the air.  Let them be the star of the show.  That's a really dumb rule.

Since I'm on a rant about dumb rules, I hate the "you can only win once in every 30 days rule."  It has never made sense to me, unless it's a big chunk of cash they are winning, but if it's a smaller prize, who cares how often they win?  Unless we bring it to their attention, most listeners will never know if a winner has had multiple winnings.  Research shows that these people are the ones that would be most likely to say yes to a PPM or diary survey if asked, they are heavy users of the station and are talking about your station to their friends.  You're going to tell them once they win, they should go listen to another station for 30 days and try to win their prize before they come back?  That's a dumb rule.  Let the "Prize Pigs" win (can you image if these loyal listeners knew we called them "Prize Pigs?")  Other businesses reward this kind of repeat business, but radio doesn't.  Can you image Safeway calling their most loyal customers "Shopping Pigs" because they may come in 3-4 times per week to shop?  I bet that customer would find another store pretty fast.

Listeners have a lot more going on in their life than the radio.  Why make it hard on them to listen?We need to make it as easy and rules free as possible for them. 

The harder we make it with dumb rules, the less they will listen.