In a business where “reality” can mean competing beachcombers or supermodels, one station says it’s time for a Reality Check.

And that’s the name of the ongoing sales promotion at Acme Communications’ WBDT in Dayton, Ohio, which won top honors at this year’s NAB Small Market Exchange.

Reality Check is a life-size board game that the CW affiliate organizes at local high schools to teach students some hard lessons about cold cash that many grown-ups never master— namely, how to manage your money well enough to make it past the end of the month.

Each day-long Reality Check shows 600 sophomores what it’s like to choose a career, start a family, buy a home and car, and pay for food, utilities, insurance, taxes and more.

But while all of those things add up to a real life, Reality Check is really about subtraction. Students can’t pick just any profession. They’re limited to careers in keeping with their actual grades.

“In other words,” explains GM John Hannon, “you can’t be a doctor if you’re getting Ds. So there’s the first lesson they learn: if you want a good paycheck, you’d better study.”

Students pick from a list of 40 careers based upon actual government employment statistics for the Dayton DMA. Each job comes with an accurate monthly salary, which doubles as the starting balance in a virtual check register—hence the “check” in Reality Check.

Says Hannon, “This is where the game really starts. The students usually have no concept of how a $50,000-a-year income translates into a monthly salary or expenses.”

They soon learn that choices have consequences. A hairdresser may earn less money, but a lawyer’s first stop on the game board is to pay back that student loan—at a booth sponsored by a local college or credit union.  Next, players buy a home with a monthly mortgage, explained and sponsored by a realtor or bank. Then comes a car and insurance and groceries and furniture—all presented by the actual vendors at real-life prices.

Reality Check was the suggestion of WBDT account executive Al Yarcho, who brought the idea with him from radio sales, where ad inventory is more plentiful. Hannon says it took some time for WBDT to refine the concept until it required almost zero airtime, yet provided plenty of exposure for sponsors.

“At every booth, the kids are stuffing their Dayton CW bags with actual sales literature and promotional items, which they take home where their parents see it too," Hannon says. The station benefits too with over $76,000 in added revenue, he says.

What’s harder to measure is the lasting value of a first-rate community service, Hannon says. “Our clients really seem to enjoy interacting with the kids and helping to educate them.” 

And they deliver those lessons with a bluntness rarely seen on a sales floor. For example, Serra Chevrolet greets students with a display board that emphasizes the monthly payment cost of every featured model. Apparently, this candor is as effective as it is sobering. After checking the math at home, several students have returned to Serra with their parents to actually buy a car.

Now in its fifth year, many Reality Check sponsors are repeat customers. But then signing up advertisers was never the biggest challenge, reports Hannon. “At first it was tough to get buy-in from a school. Finally our account executive Al Yarcho convinced nearby Miamisburg High to be our launch school.”

Although principal James Ingham has moved to a new assignment, he remains an ardent Reality Check booster, praising the program at district school meetings and even phoning up the occasional client.  

WBDT now holds two Reality Checks a year—one at Miamisburg High and the other elsewhere in the DMA.

Although the annual crop of new sophomores guarantees new participants, the station keeps interest high by adding a realistic element of chance to this game of life.

Students pass through two Fortune or Misfortune booths where they might win the Lottery, or get stuck with the bill to replace bald tires. Monthly child care expenses are based upon the number of children randomly assigned, lottery-style, by a numbered ping-pong ball (which arguably doubles as Ohio’s biggest birth control pill.)

But WBDT saves the biggest Reality Check for last. Any student who runs out of money takes a compulsory trip to Credit Counseling—a euphemism for a mandatory second job—at a booth usually sponsored by a local fast food joint. “Then you go back to where you ran out of money in the game and finish the game with the additional dollars from that second job.”

It’s a shocker for teens who suddenly see that 20 hours of fast food work doesn’t go very far.

It’s the fourth year in a row that a sales promotion from Dayton CW has placed among the top four finalists at the NAB Small Market Exchange’s elimination-style competition. This year was even tougher, says Hannon. “There was record attendance with 89 promotions submitted for consideration.”  As always, those entries were whittled down to 25 “Toppers.”

Last year's WBDT entry was edged out by only two votes, says Hannon, “so I was real pleased when our team won. We’re blessed with a team that just wants to win and continues to come up with ideas to make us not only No. 1 locally, but nationally.”

He means that literally. WBDT is the No. 1-rated CW affiliate in the country—a title it may well recapture this February now that it's added a nightly newscast in partnership with Dayton’s NBC affiliate, WDTN.

But as Fred Allen famously observed, “Imitation is the sincerest form of television.” Even before being named the top Topper, Reality Check has been widely copied by stations in other markets, a practice that WBDT actually encourages—with one caveat.

“Call your game Get Real or Slice of Life. But please don’t call it Reality Check. We’ve registered that name and we have to protect it.”

Hey! Why should other stations get all the credit for brilliant promotions when you’re doing brilliant work in your own DMA? Here’s why: you haven’t told your story to TVNEWSDAY where every Monday Market Share by Arthur Greenwald showcases another winning campaign! So don’t wait. Write to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.