course. This was awhile ago.
Can I tell you my own personal experience with this? Full Disclosure Time!
Begging everyone's apologies here. I've posted this story at least a couple of times before. So please forgive me, anyone who's already seen it. We have a nice bunch of new people here and maybe they haven't seen it. It's not to pat myself on the back, either. It's to illustrate how THIS DOES WORK. IT'S FOR REAL. THIS REALLY DOES WORK. THIS HAS AN IMPACT. I'VE SEEN IT WITH MY OWN EYES. I think it's important in our strategic thinking as we all start hunkering down and working toward what hopefully will be another successful presidential cycle in 2016.
Background-wise; I spent the early part of my career in local radio starting in the mid-70s. I was the news lady. I worked morning drive, afternoon drive, and weekends. Mostly weekends to start with. I worked mainly in rock radio both AM and FM, and one AM all-newser. The first FM rockers at which I worked typically had a guy doing the news, weekdays, in the morning. They either had nobody in the afternoons or they had another guy handling the afternoon news and there was nobody on weekends or to fill in if one of the regulars got sick or went on vacation. That was also when the FCC had begun a period of leaning on stations to hire women. I was one of many women in news who rode in on that wave and got on-air jobs. At one point this unique little "club" of us turned into an ersatz L.A. organization that we called "Broads in Broadcasting"! My first several jobs were the results of the same number of first attempts to fit a female into that schedule in some manner. So I found a way in and attempted to build.
People were hired and fired for all sorts of reasons. The ratings service called Arbitron ruled. Every station subscribed. This was before the days of the People Meters or anything else new. You got a "diary," a little book to fill out, logging when you listened during the day, and to whom. They wanted specific times or time periods and call letters. That was all melted down into the ARBs which all the stations got on a quarterly basis. There also was a monthly tracking - it was the ARBiTrends. And there were competitors. And also, it was sort of a haphazard system. People often didn't fill out their diaries accurately, because if you're not a media junkie, you might not know or care which station you were tuned in to. Asking people to be dedicated and keep an honest objective diary didn't always work because this was voluntary and people couldn't always be counted on to remain vigilant. Still, people lived and died by the ratings.
There was also this other Arbitron service called the ARB Talkback. It didn't show times or dayparts or call letters. It allowed you the chance to write specific comments about what you were listening to. More individualized, and very focused. These were active listeners who were paying attention, knew what they were listening to, and which station, and their voices mattered a lot. These were the listeners who'd support your station, its activities and public events, and its advertisers. And stations REALLY lived and died by those listeners.
There was one particular ratings period while I was there, which had included a change of program director and the on-air lineup was juggled and a new morning guy was brought in and the sloganeering was changed and the ratings hadn't exactly been increasing. That meant many different individuals at the station had their heads on or very near to the chopping block. The ARBs came out, which had every sphincter muscle in the building on tight-mode, and that included the ARB Talkback. One would expect comments to be written about what some jock said or how the traffic reporter never gets it right or some song that was played too much or not enough. But there was one comment in there that read: "Entertaining morning news with (calimary)." That listener comment mentioned me by name. Some guy out there in listener land wrote it and sent it in. I think that was the only time anybody on the air-staff was singled out during that ratings period, and it was me - the lowly newsperson, the lowest on the on-air staff totem pole, and the least of all equals in a music format. As word of that comment spread through the building, people started to react to me differently. Sales people, other jocks, the production guys, management, the music department people. Everybody. All of a sudden, I was "somebody"! Someone showed it to me and I was flabbergasted! I will tell you something else, too. The firings continued. Departments continued to be downsized and more people were laid off. All except me. They didn't touch me for months. I was golden for about a year before I moved elsewhere for a better gig. And I was in the news department which rock stations usually maintained, minimally, because the FCC regulations of the time said they had to. In rock radio, "news" really was thought of as having the "eeeeuwww!" sound in it, since news bits or updates meant that much less time you could play another hit. You were there so the jock had a chance to go to the bathroom. Pretty funny, really. We weren't exactly the be-all and end-all of rock radio, us on the news end, and we knew it. But you could make the most of it, and I guess I did. Or at least that ONE guy filling in that ONE ARB Talkback evidently thought so. And it COUNTED!!!! It MATTERED!!! People in all the other departments were let go. But they left me alone.
I'm convinced that ARB Talkback comment saved my job for a year until I found another job and left. I was able to jump before being pushed. Btw - every other station in town that subscribed to that ARB Talkback saw that comment too. The effect of things like that is never permanent. But it DEFINITELY strikes a nerve, and leaves a mark. It has an impact!!! ESPECIALLY if it's something ON PAPER that you can hold in your hand and point to and pass around so others can see it. Right there in black 'n' white. And you might also see a copy of it posted on the bulletin board in the coffee room. Or you might see copies passed around or left sitting on somebody's desk. There'll always be the "Hey, did you see THIS?" Somebody with some agenda will inevitably spread that kind of thing around, in either an obvious or a sneaky way. It's just human nature. People gossip. I've never worked anywhere - where there isn't a rumor-mill alive and very well. And if management would rather ignore it or doesn't want it to get out, never mind! It'll get out anyway.
NEVER under-estimate the power and clout of a paper letter, or a written note of some kind. Nowadays I imagine if you screen-save a Tweet or some such, that'd be the same thing. When it's on the internet - it lives forever. So I suspect it works the same way in this day 'n' age. I got out of the whole business in the mid 90s when the internet was just barely getting started in our part of the broadcasting world. We were just beginning to engage in email traffic and digital editing instead of tape editing with razor blades and a splicing block. A paper letter or some other form of written, visible testimony is also given greater weight because the recipients get the message that someone actually cared enough to take the time to write something and send it in or mail it. I'd say it STILL has weight. Seeing is believing, in the same way that video of something makes sure it's for real and taken seriously and goes viral, as opposed to something that's not on video.
One more thing. Maybe it sounds like "100 paper letters" are nothing. Oh yeah??? Think again!!! DO NOT underestimate THAT, either!!! In my experience, even just one comment, one letter (or letter to the editor), one call into the request line, one anything - ALWAYS was interpreted as representative of many more. Sometimes it was a shitload more, depending on the size of the city or the network penetration. Even one. Of course multiples of that mean more and weigh more and exert more clout and are taken even MORE seriously. But even ONE will get attention.
NEVER under-estimate the power and clout of a paper letter, or a written note of some kind.
NEVER EVER!!!!!
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