Radio sponsorship:  A conflict of interest?

John Ogle is a radio legend.

Not just here in Richmond where the newscasts he has anchored over the years have been heard on many frequencies around the dial including his most recent home on WCVE-FM, the local National Public Radio affiliate, but also in the nation’s biggest market New York City.

I remember being in a dorm in Rutgers University the night John Lennon was shot and hearing the news from John Ogle and his radio colleagues.  John was part of the FM radio heyday of New York radio.   He was news director for WPIX-FM.  Along with it’s competiors WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM, it was where most of us heard new music for the first time and got most of our news.

So it was with great concern and interest that my business partner, Josh Dare, who also grew up in the New York area, told me one day a few weeks ago that John had lost his long-time sponsor on WCVE.  Unlike commercial stations, in this case the loss of a sponsor meant John’s WCVE news reports would be silenced.

THP has been involved with the Community Idea Stations since we started our firm almost eight years ago.  The relationship started with “challenges” during pledge drives.  We would pony up $500 and challenge other PR firms to match.  Those challenges kept THP’s name on the air for days at a time.  People came up to us for months after saying they heard the firm’s name on the air.

Since then we have sponsored events including Judy Woodruff’s trip to Richmond to talk to the station’s donors.

We were about to sponsor another challenge when the chance to redirect that money (and more) to sponsor Mr. Ogle’s newscast presented itself.

But this opportunity was different.  One the one hand it was a chance to preserve an outlet for news in a market that has seen those outlets shrink over the last few years.   On the other hand, as opposed to a general sponsorship, this money would go to sponsor a specific newscast, a newscast that THP pitches local clients to with great regularity and general placement success.

The question on the table is bluntly, would THP sponsoring this newscast be a conflict of interest?  Would we expect Mr. Ogle to automatically do every story we pitched to him?  How would our friends, clients and others in the PR/social media industry think about it?

Blunt questions, no easy answers.

After discussing with Josh, others at THP and Mr. Ogle, we have decided to move ahead with the sponsorship.  In the spirit of transparency, I’ve decided to share that decision with you before the sponsorship starts in order to gauge reaction and get feedback. 

In exchange for our sponsorship, THP will get three 30-word mentions in morning drive each week referencing the Ogle relationship but not running directly before or after the segment.  During this mention THP will promote:

• THP, telling people who were are, what we do and directing folks to our website and our Facebook page.
• Our clients, who we will mention on a rotating basis and point out the good work they do in the community.
• Select non-profit groups which are connected to THP through client relationships or through our collective work in the community.

Finally, we WILL NOT in any way influence Mr. Ogle to limit coverage of stories pitched to him by other public relations and marketing professionals.  We are not sponsoring his news segment to influence his new judgement.  We are sponsoring his news segment to make sure it stays on the air.  PERIOD.

We also have made it clear to Mr. Ogle that he use the same news judgement that he has always used in considering our story pitches to him and at no time will we hold this sponsorship “over his head” in any way to gain coverage for clients.

We realize that some might consider this “too close” a relationship for a public relations/social media/communicaitons firm to have with a local newscast and newscaster with the geographic and cultural reach of Mr. Ogle and the Community Idea Stations.  We respect that.  We also hope you respect our desire to keep his voice on the air as it has been for five decades.

I welcome comments and discussion on this important topic.