How to Win Crap on the Radio

I’ve won so much on radio contests that I’ve received 1099’s and paid taxes on them. Here are just some of the things I’ve won over the years: • Trip to the Radio Music Awards in Las Vegas, 3 nights in the Aladdin with $600 spending money and a chance to win $1 million. • Four Frontier Airlines tickets anywhere they flew in the United States • Eight Six Flags amusement park admissions • $1000, cash • $600, cash • Universal Orlando Two-park passes • Eight Orlando Legoland & water park admission tickets • SeaWorld Orlando and concert • NBA playoff games • Stanley Cup playoff games • Baseball games • Professional Lacrosse games • Denver Nuggets basketball games • Concerts that are too numerous to count and included Elton John, Styx, Chicago, Dennis DeYoung, ZZ Top, Kansas, Tony Bennett, to name a few • Many different restaurant gift cards • Scratch lotto tickets • Hotel resort packages such as a New Years Eve celebration and Valentine’s Day complete with meals and entertainment THE BEST ODDS OF WINNING I believe that your best odds of winning a contest are on the first day, first cue to call, and the last day, last cue to call. Often, a radio station begins advertising a contest over the weekend preceding the Monday that it begins. Many people listen to the radio only in the car or at work so they don’t hear the advertisements often enough over the weekend to remember to listen on Monday morning. The early bird gets the worm, literally. A lot of people are still in bed at 6:00 a.m. and most contests have a cue to call within that hour or the next. You can even go back to bed after you try. At the end of the week many listeners simply give up trying. They convince themselves that they will never win because they hardly get through to the station. I have to admit that being able to tune out the thousands of busy signals you will hear is a challenge but can be overcome with patience. Also, many people head for entertainment at the end of the week and even take off early to do that. They have no interest in the radio or are not at a place they can even listen. Nationwide contests in multiple markets certainly lower your odds dramatically but it is not impossible to win. I won a Clear Channel trip to the Radio Music Awards in Las Vegas and I was competing with about 2500 radio stations all at the same time. I was the 52nd nationwide caller the second week of the contest and the only one from Colorado. They gave the trip to 168 winners. We also had a chance to win one million dollars out in Las Vegas! I used only my cell phone to win that trip.