Sam McManis – StarTribune.com
Friends didn't need to ask Victoria Myers why in the world she would subject herself to the bloating and the nausea, the chattering teeth and the extreme headache. They knew it was the sheer adrenal rush of the challenge and the accompanying glow of on-air attention — not a prize of a Nintendo Wii — that motivated the 23-year-old state worker to participate in the local radio station's water-drinking contest, which resulted in a woman's death.
"I didn't know there was such a thing as a Wii until I heard of the contest," said Myers, who finished fourth in the Jan. 12 promotion. "For me, it's the attention thing. The End (KDND FM) is such a big radio station — everyone I know listens to it."
So OK. That's why she did it. But why, many have asked in the wake of contestant Jennifer Lea Strange's death, would The End, a contemporary hits radio station, have staged such an outrageous and risky stunt?
Simple, industry experts say.
Stunts are a huge boon to radio ratings. And stations have no trouble finding willing participants — especially in this era of reality TV and extreme sports — to go to the edge. And, occasionally, over it.
"Stations are driven to do stuff — be it concerts, crazy stunts or controversial jokes on the air," said Mike McVay, a Cleveland-based consultant to more than 150 radio stations.
Of course, radio has a long history of on-air promotions. Those marathon dances in the 1930s, where participants often passed out from exhaustion? Sponsored by radio stations. The midcentury phenomenon of swallowing goldfish or worms for prizes? Started in radio.
Extreme eating contests? Prolonged billboard-sitting? Treasure hunts? Plunging people into viscous vats of liquid? Yup — all radio staples.
What's new is that radio has competition in staging the outrageous to attract notice. With reality shows like "Fear Factor," movies such as "Jackass" and no-holds barred content on the Internet, there's "total media saturation," said Nick Trujillo, a professor of communication studies at California State University, Sacramento.
"There's almost no shock value anymore. So if you're interested in pulling a stunt now that gets attention, you have to be totally outrageous," Trujillo said.
"Is it exploitation to allow people to humiliate themselves? I suppose, in some way, it is."
But those in the radio industry say they are just tapping into the public's fascination with contests. And with attaining those 15 minutes of fame.
How that's done, they acknowledge, does mean they must push the envelope, since what was once considered wild now almost seems mild — and uninteresting.
"We've definitely been in a cycle of crazier stunts," McVay said. "Ten years ago, you could get away with wrestling in Jell-O or something."
Still, the tragedy at The End — in which Strange, a mother of three, died after drinking nearly two gallons of water in a contest dubbed "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" — may serve as a cautionary tale, said Keith Berman, an editor at Radio & Records, an industry publication.
Strange's family has announced they're planning on suing the station and the disc jockeys involved, who have since also been fired.
"This seems like it could be another Janet Jackson-style (wardrobe malfunction) event," Berman said. "It's hit a flash point and everything changed. I think a lot of stations are going to be rethinking (promotions)."
But that doesn't mean radio stunts will ever go away, others say. Too much money is at stake.
"If it didn't work, people wouldn't keep doing it," said Tom Taylor, editor of the Web site Inside Radio. "It's like campaign ads. People may complain, but they pay attention.
"We as humans just seem fascinated by other people doing something very out of the ordinary, whether it's a 'live in it and win it' SUV promotion or a Buffalo wing-eating contest."
The way radio measures ratings only feeds the frenzy. Arbitron, the ratings-charting service whose figures stations use to help set advertising rates, has its select listeners fill out a log of listening habits once a week.
"Because the ratings system is based on top-of-mind awareness, whatever stations can do to create buzz works," said Guy Zapoleon, a radio consultant in Houston. "If you have a promotion that gets attention, that'll help when ratings come around."
Not even deaths have deterred stations.
In 2000, a 37-year-old Endwell, N.Y., woman died after falling and hitting her head in a station parking lot as a mob of listeners rushed to glimpse a woman they thought was Britney Spears, but who was in fact just a look-alike.
In 1970, a stunt by a Los Angeles radio station had listeners track down a car driven by a DJ, resulting in a fatal car accident.
And McVay said he was the program director at a station in Louisville, Ky., in 1979 when a man drowned during a promotion.
"The station had sponsored a raft race down the Ohio River," McVay said. "How crazy was that? People would make rafts out of milk cartons and stuff and then float down this surging river. Unfortunately, a man who was intoxicated fell in and died."
Once such stunts prove too dangerous — or passe — stations just trot out other, not necessarily safer ones.
"Some of these promotions are just a Disneyland of liability waiting for you," said Holland Cooke, a consultant in Rhode Island.
Where will the reality-TV obsessed culture lead us next? Trujillo said he wonders.
"Are we going to pay people to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge for live-radio coverage?" he asked. "I'm sure you can find some people to do that."
Myers, the fourth-place finisher in The End's water-drinking contest, said that while Strange's death has made her stop and think, she would definitely participate in another radio contest.
"Absolutely," she said. "I'm one of those competitive people who love that stuff." |