On-air pledge drives work because they deliver their payloads to their target audiences with strategic precision.

Unfortunately, on-air drives hit more than their targets. They hit every listener – giver and non-giver alike.  The disruption in programming causes significant collateral damage, the extent of which is neither well known nor widely acknowledged by most public broadcasters.

Phones ring and blink in our sights.  But each score wounds literally hundreds.

Ask them what they think about our campaigns and they can barely contain their emotions.  In focus groups listeners rail against our drives without provocation.

Why shouldn't they?  Drives make our programming unreliable.  They interrupt its service and undermine its quality, both real and perceived.

Even our core listeners and givers – people who support public radio with their loyalty and money – can’t understand why we’re bombing our service in order to save it.

In the Public Radio Recontact Survey half of our listeners say they listen less or tune out during drives.  These good citizens have no reason to lie.  Pitch breaks send them scurrying to the shelter of silence or other stations five to ten minutes at a time until the campaign ceases.

Fortunately, our regular programming brings them back.  And why shouldn't it?   It’s what they tune in to hear.  It’s what they pay to maintain.

If they return, why should we be concerned?

Resentment

For now, the negative effect of drives on behavior is short-term.  But the more significant, long-term collateral damage is in attitude.  And the attitude is resentment.

Our link to listeners – particularly givers and those in the core – is through shared values, interests, and beliefs.  Our programming creates a psychological community built on trust.

We bomb that community when we blow up the sound, quality, and appeal of our service.

Resentment is the unavoidable fallout.

And the greatest casualty of all is opportunity loss.

Unnecessary Casualties

Numerous findings suggest the price we pay for firing upon our own:

• Many listeners are not listening to on-air drives; public service plunges.
• People who can afford to select their media alternatives are not as tolerant or forgiving.
• Resentment of drives makes public radio not as important in listeners’ lives.
• And resentment is strongly linked to not giving to public radio.

A growing number of field experiments suggest that collateral resentment is not an inescapable cost of doing business.

• They demonstrate that on-air drives can be shortened successfully.
• They offer proof that effective fundraising from established givers can occur off-air.
• And they show that in style, content, and attitude, breaks can be made more like the programming in which they appear.

People join our community voluntarily and they support it voluntarily.  Common sense says we ourselves become better community members when we adopt strategies that decrease collateral damage.

The drive that minimizes resentment among members of our community may also return the greatest financial dividends.  That would offer victory on two fronts – each a worthy objective.

– David Giovannoni
AUDIENCE 98 Core Team

 

Audience Research Analysis
Copyright © ARA and CPB.  All rights reserved.
Revised: September 01, 2000 12:38 PM.