Contests
29/03/14 05:34
When I worked at the radio station, we ran a number of different contests to stir interest in the station. Some of the contests were typical of radio stations of the day. The prize might be an album or a single record and it was awarded to the person who called in at the right moment. Our station broadcast at 1490 on the AM dial, so we often awarded the prize to the 14th caller. The DJ’s didn’t have the patience to wait for the 149th caller. And our market wasn’t big enough for the 1490th caller. It is easy for the DJ. You wait for all of the phone lines to light up and then you start answering: “You’re caller number 1.” Push the next line, “You’re caller number 2.” The routine goes on like that until you get to caller #14, who you put on hold until the end of the record and then put on the station live to award the prize. Then the contestant has to come down to the station to pick up the ir prize.
We had a few bigger contests. One year we sponsored a competition where a new van was driven down the center of the high school football field during half time. Contestants had special forms from the radio station on which they put their names and contact information and then they folded their forms into paper airplanes and threw them at the open sun roof of the van. Had anyone succeeded in getting their form into the van, they would have won. No one won the van. We had purchased insurance to cover the cost of the prize if someone had won. I don’t know how the insurance company figured the odds on the contest to set the premium for the contest.
These days the media is full of contests. There’s Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You can Dance, The Biggest Looser, The Amazing Race, Top Chef, Survivor, Project Runway, Big Brother, The Apprentice, The Mole, the Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model. There are cash prizes as big as a quarter of a million dollars. Prizes also include a job running a company for Donald Trump (I’m not sure that is a good thing.), a chance to be a friend with Paris Hilton (I guess they actually got people to enter that contest), a chance to marry a rich bachelor (no guarantees of wedded bliss, however), and a lot of other prizes.
I have watched one or two episodes of survivor when visiting family, but other than that, I haven’t watched any of those contests. I read somewhere that there are actual schools that charge tuition for people to train for competing for spots in television competitions. I don’t know if you can get federally insured loans for attending those schools, but it seems to me like a rather unwise career choice. Then again, I don’t watch the shows.
I grew up in a family that wasn’t much for contests as a reliable source of earning a living. We were taught that the way you get money is to work at a job and that any work can be meaningful if you give a fair share of your effort and energy in exchange for the paycheck. My parents rarely bothered to buy chances, enter raffles or fill out forms for drawings. They didn’t expect to win. I’m in the same category. I don’t expect to win, so I never buy lottery tickets and rarely enter contests. One year, however, I did manage to win an unexpected bonus. There was a Christmas giveaway at a car dealership where I had work done on my car. The guys in the shop were pushing me to enter, so I wrote down the name of a Habitat for Humanity homeowner who was about to move into a new home. That was the winning ticket! It couldn’t have turned out better, in my opinion. You might think that I would be encouraged by such a turn of luck. However, it seems to me that you can only beat the odds once, and i’ve already done so, so there is no point in entering future contests.
I had a brother who thought just the opposite on the subject. He entered every contest offered and was convinced that he would someday win big. He never did become a millionaire by winning big. He never did any harm by entering the contests, either.
There is one competition that has caught my eye, however. If I lived closer, I might consider going to one of the shows. Each Year in Melbourne, Australia, the International Comedy Festival names the year’s top Australian class clown. The contestants have to be students and they prepare comedy sketches, stand-up routines, or comedy songs and present them live on stage in front of a theater audience. There are professional comedians who serve as judges and each year they pick the top class clown in the country. There is a small cash prize. I think it is $2,500 this year. The big prize is the chance to perform on stage in front of the national audience. Some previous winners have gone on to pursue careers as professional comedians.
It seems like the kind of contest I might have been interested in entering when I was in high school. I aspired to be a bit of a class clown. The problem, in retrospect, is that I really wasn’t all that funny. I guess there is a bit of humor in teenage angst and the awkwardness of trying to survive the crazy social order of a high school, but I don’t think I ever had any material that was particularly unique or wonderfully funny.
I do, however, favor supporting the antics of class clowns and giving them a venue to perform. Sometimes if you can get a laugh it is enough affirmation to survive another day. It’s a tough world for teens becoming adults. Although we can laugh now from our perspective, there are days that aren’t all that funny to the teens themselves. Laughing together at a well-timed joke sure beats being the butt of a joke, which is the way that most high school attempts at humor end up.
I’m still not much on contests, but this one sounds better than some. I still can’t imagine why someone would think that being friends with Paris Hilton or working for Donald Trump would be a prize worth pursuing.
We had a few bigger contests. One year we sponsored a competition where a new van was driven down the center of the high school football field during half time. Contestants had special forms from the radio station on which they put their names and contact information and then they folded their forms into paper airplanes and threw them at the open sun roof of the van. Had anyone succeeded in getting their form into the van, they would have won. No one won the van. We had purchased insurance to cover the cost of the prize if someone had won. I don’t know how the insurance company figured the odds on the contest to set the premium for the contest.
These days the media is full of contests. There’s Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You can Dance, The Biggest Looser, The Amazing Race, Top Chef, Survivor, Project Runway, Big Brother, The Apprentice, The Mole, the Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model. There are cash prizes as big as a quarter of a million dollars. Prizes also include a job running a company for Donald Trump (I’m not sure that is a good thing.), a chance to be a friend with Paris Hilton (I guess they actually got people to enter that contest), a chance to marry a rich bachelor (no guarantees of wedded bliss, however), and a lot of other prizes.
I have watched one or two episodes of survivor when visiting family, but other than that, I haven’t watched any of those contests. I read somewhere that there are actual schools that charge tuition for people to train for competing for spots in television competitions. I don’t know if you can get federally insured loans for attending those schools, but it seems to me like a rather unwise career choice. Then again, I don’t watch the shows.
I grew up in a family that wasn’t much for contests as a reliable source of earning a living. We were taught that the way you get money is to work at a job and that any work can be meaningful if you give a fair share of your effort and energy in exchange for the paycheck. My parents rarely bothered to buy chances, enter raffles or fill out forms for drawings. They didn’t expect to win. I’m in the same category. I don’t expect to win, so I never buy lottery tickets and rarely enter contests. One year, however, I did manage to win an unexpected bonus. There was a Christmas giveaway at a car dealership where I had work done on my car. The guys in the shop were pushing me to enter, so I wrote down the name of a Habitat for Humanity homeowner who was about to move into a new home. That was the winning ticket! It couldn’t have turned out better, in my opinion. You might think that I would be encouraged by such a turn of luck. However, it seems to me that you can only beat the odds once, and i’ve already done so, so there is no point in entering future contests.
I had a brother who thought just the opposite on the subject. He entered every contest offered and was convinced that he would someday win big. He never did become a millionaire by winning big. He never did any harm by entering the contests, either.
There is one competition that has caught my eye, however. If I lived closer, I might consider going to one of the shows. Each Year in Melbourne, Australia, the International Comedy Festival names the year’s top Australian class clown. The contestants have to be students and they prepare comedy sketches, stand-up routines, or comedy songs and present them live on stage in front of a theater audience. There are professional comedians who serve as judges and each year they pick the top class clown in the country. There is a small cash prize. I think it is $2,500 this year. The big prize is the chance to perform on stage in front of the national audience. Some previous winners have gone on to pursue careers as professional comedians.
It seems like the kind of contest I might have been interested in entering when I was in high school. I aspired to be a bit of a class clown. The problem, in retrospect, is that I really wasn’t all that funny. I guess there is a bit of humor in teenage angst and the awkwardness of trying to survive the crazy social order of a high school, but I don’t think I ever had any material that was particularly unique or wonderfully funny.
I do, however, favor supporting the antics of class clowns and giving them a venue to perform. Sometimes if you can get a laugh it is enough affirmation to survive another day. It’s a tough world for teens becoming adults. Although we can laugh now from our perspective, there are days that aren’t all that funny to the teens themselves. Laughing together at a well-timed joke sure beats being the butt of a joke, which is the way that most high school attempts at humor end up.
I’m still not much on contests, but this one sounds better than some. I still can’t imagine why someone would think that being friends with Paris Hilton or working for Donald Trump would be a prize worth pursuing.