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The News & Observer 
July 22, 1997 

Psst: G-105 has a silent partner 

Author: Maile Carpenter; STAFF WRITER 
Edition: Final
Section: Day
Page: E1

Someone in the Triangle is holding a ticket worth $1 million, and you didn't hear it from Ed McMahon. 

You heard it from G-105 FM - for eight weeks now, hour after hour, day after day, in a deep, passionate voice: "You could win a million dollars. What would you do with a million dollars?" 

Good question. And in the day of increasingly gargantuan radio giveaways, it's a darned catchy way to win listeners. 

The catch, of course, is that G-105 doesn't have a million dollars to give away - nowhere near that, in fact. So the station hired a Dallas-based insurance company (officially called the SCA prize indemnification company) to play this game. 

If there's a winner, which is unlikely considering the odds, SCA pays the million dollars. If not, SCA keeps its money, plus a few thousand dollars premium from the radio station just for backing the contest. 

Here's the deal: At the end of May, G-105 distributed 275,000 bumper stickers, one of which actually has the winning six-digit number. The number is stored secretly in a computer at the station. Once an hour between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays, the DJ on duty puts out the call, and the 15th person to get through by phone reads his or her six-digit number on the air. The DJ types the number into the prize computer, and the computer responds with a grating "ZZZZZZ" or Homer Simpson-style "Dup!" o r some other noise indicating the caller is a loser. 

If, however, one of the 15th callers between now and Friday happens to have a ticket number that matches the secret winning number, the SCA prize company pays up: $1 million, no questions asked. 

But what are the odds? 

We put statistician Phil Meyer, Knight Chair professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to work on the question. His verdict: This is not an easy contest to win. 

A player has a 1 in 275,000 chance of holding the winning ticket. Now consider that the player with the winning ticket has at best 600 chances to call in that number. Using a statistical measure called mathematical expectancy, Meyer translated the value of a call into dollar figures for each person holding a contest ticket. In the best possible situation with only 15 callers trying to get through, Meyer found that each call made to G-105 is worth 24 cents. 

"And since a phone call costs 25 cents, it's a losing battle," Meyer said. "It's OK as entertainment, but a rational player would not find it worth his or her while to keep trying over and over again." 

Insured contests have become one of the hottest advertising gimmicks on the market. They're behind car giveaways, half-time basketball tosses, million-dollar hole-in-one contests and more. If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably backed by a prize insurer. 

"This whole industry has become very, very popular," said Todd Overton, who manages accounts for SCA. His company has been particularly busy in North Carolina, backing giveaways for the Raleigh Ice Caps, local car dealers and golf courses and even the University of North Carolina System. 

"People are starting to realize they can offer this kind of money without paying for it," Overton said, "And no one knows we're behind the contests." 

Premiums to insure contests depend on the size of the gift and the odds that someone will win; SCA prices range from $300 to $250,000. The company wouldn't say how much G-105 paid to host the million-dollar summer, but SCA charges $6,500 to sponsor the lowest-risk million-dollar giveaway, more for a moderate-risk contest like G-105. 

G-105 couldn't risk a big-money giveaway, especially since station executives are still getting over the woman who unexpectedly won $10,000 this spring by guessing a four-digit number during the Big Money Cash Machine contest. But this time, there's a different feeling around the station. They actually want someone to win. 

"Ultimately, since we're not the ones who pay it out, we really, really, really want to see someone win," said Chris Lester, assistant promotions director at WDCG and WRSN, Sunny 93.9. 

"We've been driven to top ourselves," Lester said. "Generation X has a tendency to be hardboiled against the usual. This is a one-upping thing. 

"It's bizarre though, because we can't one-up this. If somebody wins, we're in big trouble. What are you going to do next? 'Uh, caller 15 wins Rhode Island ‘?


Copyright 1997 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.