Sponsoring local NPR stations

RiverAux · January 10, 2012, 01:43:24 AM

Have any of you ever tried sponsoring shows on National Public Radio? While they don't do commercials as such, they often give what amounts to a 30 second commercial by reading a script about the company that sponsors them.

SARDOC · January 10, 2012, 02:03:17 AM

My former rescue squad did it with the local public affiliate and it itself actually paid off really well. They would even ask for a representative to be interviewed on the air for an early morning Sunday talk show about community events on quite a regular basis.

FW · January 10, 2012, 02:14:48 AM

We never sponsored a show however, we did volunteer manning the phones for a station's fund raiser one day. It was a lot of fun and, we got free publicity for the sqaudron.

Walkman · January 10, 2012, 02:40:37 AM

I was able to record a 50-sec spot for Utah Public Radio when I was a PAO a few years ago. They had a program highlighting various public service organizations in the state. Each org was showcased for a month and the spot was put into heavy rotation. Since it ran throughout the state, and I moved to another state shortly thereafter, I don't know how effective it was.

Eclipse · January 10, 2012, 02:42:35 AM

I'm not a big fan of one charity giving another money, I think it kinda misses the point, however the phone banks or
local programming angle is a good idea.

Johnny Yuma · January 23, 2012, 08:06:09 PM

In all honesty, you'd be better to sponsor something that people actually watch or listen to other than middle aged leftist eggheads...

DogCollar · January 23, 2012, 08:47:19 PM

Quote from: Johnny Yuma on January 23, 2012, 08:06:09 PM
In all honesty, you'd be better to sponsor something that people actually watch or listen to other than middle aged leftist eggheads...

I listen to NPR all the time and contribute to my local station during pledge drives. While I am 51 years old, and finishing my doctoral dissertation, I refuse to be politcally labled!

The great thing about Civil Air Patrol, at least in my opinion, is the diversity within the organization...there are conservatives, liberals and everything else! That's fine by me.

Pylon · January 23, 2012, 09:52:25 PM

Why not ask instead for help from a local college communications program in producing :30 and :60 PSA spots for your squadron, and then contacting the PSA point-of-contact at all the local radio stations. Every radio station is required by law to have somebody on staff designated to handle PSAs (usually an additional duty for someone; rarely is it someone's sole job). They're also required to air a certain number of PSAs. If you can give a radio station high-quality, proper length and properly formatted audio PSAs they're much more likely to put you in their PSA rotation than if you just call up asking for free airtime, production, and help with designing your ad campaign.

So:

Recruit somebody with quality audio equipment and editing abilities (you can often find these through AdLab's or similar functions at universities and colleges with communications or media programs) to produce proper length and format PSAs for your squadron. :30 will be the most likely to get played, but make :15 and :60 ones, too. If you give radio stations more flexibility, they're more likely to be able to put you into their rotation when a certain length slot opens up last minute.
Contact local radio station PSA managers, pitch CAP's value to the community, and provide them with a copy of your PSAs on CD or however they prefer.
Call them back periodically to see if they've been able to air any and to remind them to keep you in their PSA rotations.

Eclipse · January 23, 2012, 10:02:35 PM

Few college radio stations actually reach the community in anything but the college towns where they are located. The major one in my area
is so low on the dial, many of my radios can't physically tune the channel. A college town, though, could potentially garner some good results - some listeners will be still be young enough, or have family young enough, to join as cadets, and others will be looking for community service elective credits to pad their resumes.

Ads on a popular local podcast would probably get more attention from people who could actually be assets to CAP.

With that said, as Lord said, every broadcast station is mandated to dedicate time to local content and PSAs - though in that case you need to be sensitive to AOR and make sure to involve the PAO's from any unit / echelon within the broadcast area.

Here's an idea - hold an "occupy ES" rally and sign everyone up! Just make sure to check the batteries in your human microphone before you start!

Walkman · January 24, 2012, 01:06:23 AM

Quote from: Johnny Yuma on January 23, 2012, 08:06:09 PM
In all honesty, you'd be better to sponsor something that people actually watch or listen to other than middle aged leftist eggheads...

Let's not go there. I'm a fairly conservative youth minister with no college degree who homeschools his 5 kids. I listen to NPR all the time.

While "diversity" isn't one of our core values, Respect is. Stereotyping and name-calling shows no respect at all.

While NPR is going to have a higher percentage of their audience that skews to the left than Fox, that doesn't mean that there aren't listeners who wouldn't love to serve and make a valuable contribution to any unit.