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Monday, November 17, 2008
11/18: Star 94 raises $825K for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta; unhappy people watch more TV
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is probably the toughest period in decades to raise money (much less make money). Star 94 pulled in $825,284 in pledges over the weekend for Chlidren’s Healthcare.
That’s down about 30 percent from a year ago, when the station drew $1,212,437. In 2006, the figure was $1,215,834. In 2005, it was $1.2 million. In 2004, 1.167 million. The station has raised $6.6 million in total so far.
Cynics might say the absence of Steve & Vikki and subsequent lower ratings for the pair’s replacement the Morning Mess may have contributed to the dropoff but it probably is more the economy than anything else.
Shawnessy Rennegar, Star’s marketing gal, said Ne-Yo (below) stopped by on Friday, passed out some stuffed animals, sang to a young girl with Leukemia, and donated $5,000. Plus, more than 340 people volunteered to answer phones and help out.
-Obama’s appearance on “60 Minutes” Sunday drew almost 25 million viewers, the most for the venerable CBS show in almost a decade.
-Here’s good fodder for Leno jokes: happier people watch less TV (and socialize and read more) while unhappy people spend more time in front of the boob tube. Here’s the study.
“TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,” says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author and a pioneer in time use studies. “It’s more passive and may provide escape - especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.”
What do you think? Does this make sense?
-As a radio market, we are now ranked #7, based on Arbitron population estimates, overtaking Philadelphia. Over the past decade, fast-growing Atlanta has swept past Boston, D.C. and Detroit. We are now only behind New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and Houston. As a radio revenue market, Atlanta has been top 5 for awhile, exceeding its population size.
