DO RADIO STATIONS REVIEW PSA's FOR CONTENT ?

[Casablanca]

WRKO is running a PSA which could be interpreted as a supportive backing of one candidate for president who is of that same faith.

It raises the question whether or not that station or any radio station reviews PSA's for content and will not run them if they sound as if they are gifts-in-kind for a particular individual or party.

 

[Smoke]

Could you kindly provide more detail for those of us not perpetually listening to the decline and fall of the Big 68?

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

WRKO is running a PSA which could be interpreted as a supportive backing of one candidate for president who is of that same faith.

It raises the question whether or not that station or any radio station reviews PSA's for content and will not run them if they sound as if they are gifts-in-kind for a particular individual or party.

Yes, please provide details. If this is a tax-exempt faith-based outfit using PSAs to promote a presidential candidacy, the IRS would be more than just a little bit interested, not to mention the Federal Election Commission. Also, are we sure this is a PSA, or is it commercial matter? That would make a large difference.

 

[JIBGUY]

All stations receive a wide variety of "PSA's". They come from 3 general sources:

1) - legit PSA's from non-profit organizations and government agencies such as "Habitat For Humanity", the "USO", "EPA" etc.

2) - Industry-group PSA's, suggesting that you "see you optomitrist if you notice signs of eye problems, etc"; where those industry groups may be non-profits, but their sole purpose is to gain more business/wealth for FOR-profit members (optomistrists). - Another example: A lawyer group promoting adoption... "yes, you CAN adopt. Contact the (non-profit)Cleveland Adoption Center" -which is a front for FOR-profit adoption lawyers." Such lawyers often hold monthly seminars. - The purpose of that is for lawyers to drum up business at no cost for them to advertise, thinking that radio and TV stations will fall for their non-profit front-orgainzation PSA's. Most stations don't (not to mention that most stations don't air many PSA's in the first place!).

3) - Religious PSA's. While no one would argue against the fact that they are classified as non-profits, they often promote kindness to fellow man and/or positive thoughts of family life ('traditional' family, of course), their tag-line at the end is "brought to you by..... (The Church of the Gooey Death & Discount House of Worship)". Only NOW, with Mitt Romney running for president does it turn into a political issue when a MORMON Family-Is-Wonderful-PSA airs. The Mormons have been making radio and TV PSA's for decades.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

The criteria that I use:
-- in what language is the spot?
-- does it relate to our listening audience?
-- is it national or local?
-- is is dated for a specific event or generic?

A spot that is produced in one of our main languages, that is local, and
has some sense of timeliness to it rises to the top of the list.

Yes, the Mormon Church (LDS) has produced radio formats (Bonneville) and PSA's for many years.
Most feature top-flight production values, and readily apply to non-church members as well. They were doing this long before Mitt Romney got into politics...

 

[Casablanca]

The question is : Were those PSA's for the LDS placed on major Boston radio stations months before the New Hampshire Primary Election when one of its own members is running for President touting "family values"....? It seems an odd consequence of events.

The criteria that I use:
-- in what language is the spot?
-- does it relate to our listening audience?
-- is it national or local?
-- is is dated for a specific event or generic?

A spot that is produced in one of our main languages, that is local, and
has some sense of timeliness to it rises to the top of the list.

Yes, the Mormon Church (LDS) has produced radio formats (Bonneville) and PSA's for many years.
Most feature top-flight production values, and readily apply to non-church members as well. They were doing this long before Mitt Romney got into politics...

 

[JIBGUY]

The question is : Were those PSA's for the LDS placed on major Boston radio stations months before the New Hampshire Primary Election when one of its own members is running for President touting "family values"....? It seems an odd consequence of events.

I have not noticed any particular increase in received Mormon PSA's. For once, I think there's no conspiracy going on at all.

 

[YEKIMI]

I think their preferred method will be to knock on your door at inappropiate moments and hand you the PSA on a CD.

 

[merlin843]

CBS is big on PSAs, believe it or not. Tony Berardini, when he was GM of BCN, seems to have gone out of his way to ensure that Public Service was part of the equation. To his credit.

At WZLX I believe the PSAs are read by the on-air staff. At some college radio there seems to be a committee that looks at 'em before they are allowed for airtime - but college radio is pretty good about giving lots of airtime to PSAs - they are a great learning tool. No comment on RKO as I have no idea what is going on there in regards to PSAs.

 

[raccoonradio]

A group called the Rutherford Institute has a bunch of radio PSAs out there covering everything from
religious freedom to freedom of speech (the 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case) to a criticism of the Patriot
Act. WMWM runs a bunch of these PSAs which usually feature attorney John Whitehead and conclude
with a music bed of Colonial era fife music. Maybe something like that?
http://www.rutherford.org/

We also run the Mormon PSAs which are feel-good messages saying, "Family, isn't it about...time?"
One has a college-aged boy leaving a message on his parents' answering machine saying he misses
being at home and things like "warm socks...warm socks?...Love you..." Aww.
Speaking of the Church of JC & the LDS, their Bonneville broadcast unit owns stations like
WWWT 1500 in D.C.

 

[JIBGUY]

The Rutherford Institute distributions are not PSA's. If aired, they'd be classified ad "Public Affairs Programming"; not only due to the length but mostly because they are editorials on current issues. The current text of John Whitehead's commentaries takes about 5 minutes to read on the air (altho he provides shortened 3 minute audio versions on line). He is a constitutional attorney, and most often sticks to that topic... internal threats against the USA constitution. One may think he/they are anti-Bush, since the Bush Administration has been known to violate or at least borderline assault on the constitution. If a Democrat administration did the same thing, then he'd/they'd criticize them too with the same fiestines.

 

[raccoonradio]

The ones we run are 1 minute though. Note though that some of them take a more conservative twist.
They fought for the right of a little girl to give out Easter candies with Bible verses on them, saying
that she had freedom of expression/speech and freedom of religion. She has the right to say what she
wants about religion, but others have the right to choose not to listen, etc. "The point of law is,
our First Amendment..." as Whitehead says in the message. (btw the Constitution says that CONGRESS
may make no law establishing a certain religion, and also prohibits them from hindering _the
free exercise of it_. Some on the Left would argue that this is unconstitutional ("sep. of
church and state"), but the R.I.
argues that "Everyday (the Institute) works tirelessly to defend the right of people to freely worship and exercise their religion. Whether at work, in the public square, in prison, or in the classroom"

Of course the freedom of one's fist ends at another's nose, which is why a certain "church" was recently
fined BIG time for disrupting soldiers' funerals (you know, the "Thank God For AIDS" folks...) Their
freedom to express their religion only extended to the point where nobody else was disrupted.

 

[JIBGUY]

"Everyday (the Institute) works tirelessly to defend the right of people to freely worship and exercise their religion. Whether at work, in the public square, in prison, or in the classroom"

Well that depends upon whether public funds were used for their platform. "At work" people should be working. In the classroom, they should be learning.

Interesting debate. But I'd like to know more about Rutherford... Since this posting is getting off-topic, let's discontinue it here. Write me: [email protected]

 

[Eli Polonsky]

At some college radio there seems to be a committee that looks at 'em before they are allowed for airtime - but college radio is pretty good about giving lots of airtime to PSAs - they are a great learning tool.

College and other non-comm radio stations can also be fined large amounts of money if they allow advertisments for for-profit businesses and ventures that are disguised as PSA's to air. It's illegal for non-comms to air commercials even if they're thinly veiled as alleged PSA's. It's important for these stations to check and make sure that all PSA's to be read are truly PSA's and are truly non-profit. Many for-profit businesses try to slip advertisments disguised as PSA's into non-comm's every day, hoping the stations won't know better, and not caring about putting the stations at risk. They must be weeded out.

When I used to help with PSA's at one of the local college stations, I also used to weed out PSA's for certain seemingly helpful organizations that were fronts for cults, such as certain drug/alchohol treatment programs, counseling programs, etc... that were fronts for Scientology, the Moonies, etc... and used these programs to induct people into their organizations.