Finding What Matters

Media is a beast. A machine that is in existence in part, to feed the egos of a small number people (the entertainers) who work in the business, and program them to affect the lives of as many consumers as possible. Then, the job of the media is to entertain those consumers or sell them something or indoctrinate them or move them into action, or perhaps to all of those things. Most of the time, the message is mindless. In 1999, I was the imaging director at a radio station in St. Louis. My job was to use audio to position and characterize our station as the station females in the target demo should listen to when they want fun. To create that image, we played the most fun, upbeat music, gave away the best prizes and tickets to the artists they wanted to see. The airstaff matched the character of the station very well, too. We were fun, but that's all we were. Everyday, our inter-office concerns were wrapped around the next big concert. What would we included in the fly-a-way to the Dave Matthews show? How many CDs is the record company providing for prize packs? Are we getting backstage passes at the Grammy's? How many minutes of music did our competitor play last week? Can we play more?

In 2001, I was given the opportunity to be involved in a Radiothon for Children's Miracle Network. I had done charity radio events before, so I figured I knew the drill. But, I was told that this event was not like other fund-raising radio events and it would require a lot of work on my part. I had no idea how different from other events it would be. The three day broadcast event was filled with stories of kids treated by two hospitals (Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center and St. Louis Children's Hospital) and it was life-changing. And it was also a lot of work. I had conversations with over a dozen kids and their families, produced those to format-appropriate songs, and we played them on the air.

Until the Children's Miracle Network Radiothon, the best on-air fund raiser I had been involved with took in a respectable $70,000. Back then, like most on-air charity events that ask for money, all we did was ask for money. There were a few interviews with board members and others who are responsible for making sure the charity was funded, but the focus for giving was always on the cool stuff you would get if you gave. There was also high value place on entertainment during the event. That's nice, but it's not engaging. And the cost of acquiring all those incentives and the manpower required to execute, far exceed the money collected. It would have been easier to just get those corporate donors to cough up cash, instead of prizes and forget about doing the three ring circus that was the primary focus of the two day event. The other barrier is created by the ego of the on-air talent. Face it, anyone in entertainment and media has an ego...and I included myself. (Do you think I'm foolish enough to write this while thinking it isn't worth reading?) As talent, we love to hear ourselves talk. And we love to think that by just speaking the words, our followers will fall into line and do exactly as we say whether it's buying a car, getting a mortgage, or...calling to give money to a children's hospital.

This time, using produced stories along with live interviews from Guy Phillips and the rest of the air staff resulted in raising over $326,000 in about 36 hours. But what made the difference?

Everbody's Got One

It's as simple as telling a story. It's the one thing that everyone has that they would love to share, if they thought anyone would listen. Here is some proof that I happen to think is brilliant:

The Children's Miracle Network Radiothon works because the stories are not from suits telling us all what the money will do to help kids. Instead, the stories are being told by the moms, dads, families and the kids themselves who face a health disaster. The stories are brutally real. And the families get through it because the LOCAL hospital was there with the resources to help and provided hope when there was no hope. Even in tragic situations when a child doesn't make it, they tell their stories because they are grateful. Begging for money is noise, but stories are moving and powerful and resonant.

We had a successful radiothon, but going back to work and convincing everyone that the most important thing in the world is that the new Rob Thomas CD is out next week felt a little depressing. That stuff didn't matter to me anymore because I realized that I had been completely out of balance. Everything I had been doing was purely entertainment. Don't misunderstand, I still like entertainment...even mindless entertainment, but when entertainment is all you have you tend to get bored quickly and then you must find the next pointless activity to get your fix. And then, just four weeks after the radiothon, planes crashed. Buildings fell. People died. You know that because all of us were there and we all dealt with it in different ways, in our own way, together. With clips from media sources and even from listeners stopping by to tell their stories, I produced this:

Why are stories important? For me, Not Just Any Other Day helps me remember the day and leave me with hope. The stories told at radiothon help bring a listener into a place where you really wish they could be. Because if they could see it, smell it, and feel it...they would not be able to say "no" not out of guilt, but because they would experience the need and be glad to do what they could to help.

Time For A Change

After freelancing with the charity, I left my imaging gig to go to work full-time for Children's Miracle Network in 2002 and since then I have worked with hundreds of radio stations in the US and Canada to do this event. (We recently added Ireland and we're developing in Australia.) I have personally produced over 1,200 stories about kids who have been treated by their LOCAL children's hospital. These radio stations and the entire Radiothon team are responsible for raising nearly $200 million dollars in the last four years. That's just radio. And, the incredible fact is that the LOCAL hospitals keep 100% of the money the stations raise to provide care to over 17 million kids every year. The money for operations comes from other sources of sponsorship and underwriting.

Why do you need to know this? If you're a radio pro, you need to know because radiothon is a great fit for what radio does so well: Serve the LOCAL community. The idea of supporting the hospitals that help kids in your own city is something your should consider doing before you send your cash out of town because your LOCAL children's hospital is the first place you'll go when your daughter, son, niece, nephew, friend, or neighbor faces a health crisis. And all the celebrity spokespeople in the world won't matter when you need help right now.

Click here and punch in your zip to find your local Children's Miracle Network Hospital.

Finding Balance

Each year brings me about 400 interviews from cities all over North America to cut up, clean up, and assemble into what turns out the be around 300 finished stories that are ready for air, and they're not all sad. Some kids get hurt, some get sick. Car accidents or accidents while at play. An ordinary fever leads to a bad test result and that leads to chemo treatments. Or maybe the child is born with a heart that is adult-sized by their 4th birthday and there is nothing more that can be done. So, mom and dad just let him be a kid and let him enjoy the time that he has. What doing this has shown me that you must stay balanced. Remember "A time to laugh, A time to cry?" (The Byrds knew what they were talking about when they plagiarized Ecclesiastes.) When you spend 8+ hours a day editing mostly sad stories, you will wear down. So, to maintain some level of sanity, I still do VO for all kinds of projects and even a few production projects so that I stay fresh on techniques not used in the very specialized work I do for Children's Miracle Network broadcasts.

Thanks for stopping by.