Using Radio

Radio, the first of the electronic media, was "new" in the 1920s, when it began to offer an alternative to print information media. Subsequently, broadcast television became the novel medium—then cable and the VCR, along with the computer and the many programs and database services that turn a personal computer into a medium of mass communication.

Does that mean that radio's days are past, that the medium is a relic of a bygone era when people listened to it carefully for up-to-the-minute news and to hear events as they unfolded? Not if you think about what radio is and does today. Radio is another person talking to you. Radio is local. And the cost of radio is comparatively inexpensive per message, which permits an organization to repeat something. Radio, in other words, is a very important medium for the public relations practitioner to consider.

Let's begin our discussion of the way radio fits into the public rela­tions campaign by analyzing the formats it offers, from paid advertise­ments to public-service spots.

Paid Advertisements

If you want to dictate the precise content, time, and date of your mes­sage, you'll have to pay for advertising space. The size of your budget will determine what kinds of paid spots you can afford. It costs more to buy drive-time spots, when millions of commuters are listening to the radio, than it does to buy late-night time, when insomniacs are the main audience. It costs more to position your spots before the local news broadcast each evening than it does to buy a package deal for thirty or forty repetitions of the same spot when the radio station selects the posi­tions—perhaps guaranteeing that a certain percentage of them will fall in prime time.

Perhaps radio's greatest attribute is its utility in sudden or emer­gency situations, when it is necessary to get a quickly prepared message to the general public or specialized publics on short notice. When the air traffic controllers' union went on strike, seriously disrupting air service across the nation, the airlines quickly bought time to broadcast simple spots in which a calm and authoritative announcer explained which flights would be operating normally, which service would be curtailed, and what telephone numbers area residents should call for various types of information—one number for flight crews, another for ground per­sonnel, another for passengers with flights scheduled on that particular day, and still another number for general information.

Public Service Announcements

When the information is carried in the form of a free advertisement, it is known as a public service announcement, or PSA. In order to get their broadcast licenses renewed, commercial stations must demonstrate that they have provided the public service of distribut­ing useful information to the community from government agencies, charities, and community betterment groups.

Often the PSA is as expensively produced as any paid advertisement and arrives from national organiza­tions such as those organized to raise research funds to combat dis­eases or social problems.

Usually only nonprofit groups may expect to get PSAs on the air, because they should expect to hear it aired mainly in time periods when paid advertising cannot be sold—which is to say, when only some segments of the radio audience are listening.

PSAs are limited in their impact. They alone are not likely to cause long-term behavior changes. They are most useful for creating awareness or heightening the public's sensitivity to a health problem or issue.