Just heard 680(The Fan)/Atlanta promoting its upcoming Strike Out Leukemia and Lymphoma Radiothon.  I saw your eyelid twitch!   Radiothons were an early victim of PPM, which provided PDs with data that seemed to support their belief that such events are a listener turn-off.  But a new study by Edison Research and a 2010 study by Coleman Insights demonstrate that carefully planned radiothons are not ratings killers.

From Stark County’s coverage of the Edison presentation:

“‘The image is out there that PPM is bad for ratings’, said [Edison principal Larry] Rosin. He noted that the ‘metaphor of choice’ PDs used to described their fear of radiothons’ impact on ratings was death, quoting programmers who used words like ‘killed’ and ‘murdered’ to describe what they felt could happen to their ratings. Rosin then proceeded to at least partially de-bunk that belief, noting that running a radiothon is not equivalent to ‘engaging in ratings ethnic cleansing.’

“Rosin cited numerous statistics from his research showing that while ratings did take a temporary hit during [a] radiothon, they bounced back quickly and by two weeks later were 1% higher on average for stations than they had been in the week before the radiothon.

“I don’t deny stations had to endure a little bit of ratings pain,” Rosin said, but they bounced back slightly higher than their pre radiothon levels, something Rosin partially attributes to the community goodwill generated by running a radiothon.

He also cautioned against applying PPM statistics about radiothons to diary markets. ‘One of the most distressing things I hear about is people questioning the radiothons in diary markets because of info they get in PPM markets,’ Rosin said. ‘I highly doubt that is any kind of diary reality’.”

Rosin went on to encourage local stations to use radiothons as yet another way to bond with the local community in the face of growing competition from satellite and Internet audio providers.  Several radio pros I interviewed agreed with Rosin but urged stations to consider all the factors before undertaking a radiothon, including the strength of their station’s brand, and the timing of the event. Notice that sports-talk 680 is doing their radiothon at the slowest time of the sports year.