STATIONS TALK TURKEY TO FEED THE HUNGRY

Broadcasting is a business of contradictions. It’s a mass audience medium that’s obsessed by demographic subdivisions. Growing competition makes cost-cutting mandatory, yet budgets are cast aside if that’s what it takes to cover a local emergency.

But in every fourth quarter, broadcasters face an annual contradiction that is perhaps the most puzzling as well as one of the nicest. Just when advertisers’ demand is at its peak, stations set aside extra airtime for holiday-themed public service campaigns.

With Thanksgiving approaching, chances are you’re running just such a campaign on your own air. If so, you’re certainly in good company:

In Sacramento, Calif., CBS-owned KOVR is co-sponsoring a Thanksgiving Day Fun Run to support the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.

On the air and online, Granite Broadcasting’s KSEE 24NEWS is covering and promoting the annual Thanksgiving food box drive at Fresno’s Community Food Bank.

With the help of LIN’s WTNH, in New Haven, Conn., every donor to the Connecticut Food Bank received tickets to “The Game”—the Ivy League dual of Harvard vs. Yale.

And KDKA in Pittsburgh, another CBS station, celebrates the 25th year of its annual Turkey Fund by supplying more Thanksgiving meals than ever to those dependent on the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

That last campaign is nearest and dearest to my heart as I was present at its creation. The year was 1982 and a collapsing steel industry was pushing Pittsburgh towards near-record unemployment.

The station was then owned by Westinghouse. And as you might expect from the Group W station in that decade, KDKA responded with an ambitious public service campaign. KD+You: On The Job encompassed regular news and programming features (remember when those were separate?), a primetime job-a-thon, innumerable PSAs and direct community services where station employees, including on-air talent, volunteered at employment clinics, food banks and more.

In the midst of all this, the late Al Julius, famous for his theatrical commentaries, was approached on the street by a viewer. She handed Julius a check for $10, saying, “Please see that a hungry family gets a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Thus inspired, Julius returned to his keyboard and banged out a commentary with a single-minded passion worthy of Howard Beale. Extolling the anonymous viewer’s generosity, he dared anyone watching to do any less. Right on camera he pledged a hundred bucks of his own money and soon upped the ante to a thousand.  In subsequent commentaries, he urged, shamed, prodded and cajoled the audience to give all they could.

And give they did. Over $250,000 in that first year, enough to provide a Thanksgiving dinner to 25,000 families. Then and now the address was “P.O. Box Thanks.”  

Julius wasn’t terribly concerned about the pages of FCC rules he violated with his generous outburst. He figured, correctly, that Group W lawyers would have no choice but to “make it all legal.”  

And somehow they did. Overnight the station established procedures for accepting and accounting for donations and for the distribution of 10-pound turkeys and fixings in the form of a $10 coupon redeemable at the region’s largest grocery chain. 

Today, the coupons are worth $15, and the KD Turkey Drive feeds an average of 45,000 families yearly. Since Al Julius retired in 1991, the campaign is fronted by veteran KDKA consumer reporter Yvonne Zanos.  And if a donation of $50 to $50,000 is made in a branch of National City Bank, the bank will match it.

The campaign was well into its second year when it generated my most cherished Thanksgiving memory. After another long day, I was leaving the station’s night entrance when I encountered a bedraggled man with darting eyes, toting a large burlap sack.

“This the place collectin’ turkeys for poor folks?” I acknowledged that it was.

“Good!” said the man, hefting the sack. “I got some fresh turkeys right here,” his smile reminiscent of a supporting player in Deliverance.

Warily and gently I explained that the station was asking viewers for money and didn’t really have a way to accept turkeys, when I noticed the sack was moving.

“Excuse me sir, but are those live turkeys in that bag?”

“Sure are,” said the man. “Four of ‘em. Prizewinners, too,” he added, beaming.

“Well in that case, come this way.”

I escorted the man into the building and pressed for the elevator. When it arrived I reached in and pressed the floor button and waved the man inside. “When the door opens, step out and ask the first person you see to take you to the news director’s office. When you get there, just let your turkeys out of the bag.”

“Much obliged,” said the visitor as the elevator doors closed. I dashed from the building as quickly as possible.

The next day, General Manager Tom Goodgame took great pains to explain that the appearance of live poultry and my continued employment were mutually exclusive. He added that the only reason I still had a job is that I provided such a good story for the next GM’s meeting.

I’m still grateful, and not because my job was spared. This Thanksgiving, as ever, I’m proud to be part of an industry where public service is considered a privilege as well as an obligation. At least it still is by the guys I like to hang with.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Hey, pilgrim! Don’t let those other turkeys gobble up all the attention! Every Monday Market Share by Arthur Greenwald showcases another winning campaign!Let us tell the story of your latest promotion success. Write to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.