Blake Farenthold <blake@pro-party.cts.com> (03/15/90)
jjw7384@ultb.isc.rit.edu (Jeff Wasilko) writes: >The choke exchange in Los Angeles charges for all call attempts, too. >My first bill from GTE was quite a surprise. I can't beleive the radio stations stand for this. When I was working in radio (10 years ago) we fried comthing at the CO giving away $1,000 and a few weeks later the phone company came out with the "radio exchange". We didn't want to change our request/contest line number and told 'em so. They said if we didnt get on the choke exchange the'd cut off ALL our phones if we jammed the CO again. This had some people in the programming and engeneering departments at the station awfully mad. We had several plans. The programmers suggested we urge all our listeners to rip out their phones and march on the business office. The engineers had th better plan though: Let 'em cut off our phones. We'd use the 2 way radios and send a DJ to a payphone.. he'd come on the air and say we're giving the money away to the first caller at xxx-xxxx. We'd fry the phone system every day from a different location. Fortunatly for the station, cooler (management) heads prevailed and we just hopped on the radio exchange bandwagon. But if they started charging listeners for the calls, that seems to defeat the purpose of a give-a-way if not violate FCC rules relating to stations conducting lotteries. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake@nosc.mil INET: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE [Moderator's Note: The fallacy in your argument is that charging for a phone call to reach the radio station lottery is violating rules pertaining to contests. Contests which have you mail in a coupon or ticket are not violating the law because the post office requires a stamp on the envelope. Both the postage stamp and the telephone charge are simply fees for transporting the message. PT]