Technology & MSG

Kane Pays Your Bills — A Reprehensible Promotion

Jun 22nd, 2007 by Alex

I was flipping radio stations on the way home today and heard of HOT 99.5’s Kane Pays Your Bills promotion. The premise is simple enough; tell them why they should pay your bills and they might choose to call you and pay them.

I don’t have a problem with the promotion itself.

I have a problem with the way the DJ pimped it on the air. He told listeners to go spend a bunch of money this weekend. It doesn’t matter, right? Kane’s going to pick you and pick up the tab.

This is completely reprehensible.

All citizens have a responsibility to the public not to incite a panic. It’s illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded theater when there isn’t a fire; people get hurt and could die in the panicky stampede that follows, regardless of whether there was a fire or not. Journalists have the added responsibility not to mislead the public or put people at risk. The responsibility should be extended to anyone with the public’s ear, especially those whose job it is to do so.

The quest for profits by corporate media owners has provoked radio DJs to cook up some harebrained schemes in order to increase listenership. Sometimes these are stunts acted out in the studios. Some occur on air from the contestant’s home, such as the very public death of a woman due to water intoxication at the behest of a contest-happy morning show. You can’t really disclaim liability. Signed waivers or not, I think that radio personalities should be held accountable for their actions especially when they forgo medical advice.

Physical stunts are easy to prosecute. Imagine if a DJ told the listeners to go have unprotected sex this weekend because they’d pay for the abortion or birth of a lucky winner. There’d be dozens lawsuits when the unintelligent women who entered the (theoretical) contest got pregnant or infected with some STD.

What about non-physical stunts? Mental? Financial? Economic? There aren’t as easy to prove, but that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility to keep people from harm.

The “Kane Pays Your Bills” promotion isn’t exactly the equivalent of endangering the public, but the presentation of today’s DJ certainly encouraged listeners — especially those without firm opinions or money management skills — to incur debt that they can’t afford. Hardly sound advice. That’s one way to start on the path towards financial suicide.

All for what? A few more listeners?

It makes me sick.