Fundraising PSYOPS

Music bed

Welcome to another turn of The Sonic Wheel

I’m Christopher Howell

Music bed down

After working as a part-time board operator for a number of years, I was hired as a full-time producer of fundraising spots and to help produce the on-air fundraising campaigns for public radio station 90.7 WMFE-FM in Orlando. I would produce 30 or 60 second audio spots to air during or outside of fundraising time to convince listeners to become subscribing members of the station. I was actually one of the first full-time, dedicated, public radio fundraising producers in the nation.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane and listen to some of my best productions from that era. At the time, 90.7 was a news and classical music combo. Monday through Friday we aired NPR’s Morning Edition from 6am to 9am. Locally hosted classical music from 9am to 4 pm. Then All Things Considered and Marketplace from 4 to 7. At 7pm there was recorded classical music all night until the next morning.

Here’s a short spot that aired around news programming in the two weeks or so leading up to the fund drive. The aim of the spot was to thank listeners and to plant a seed to get them ready to give when the drive began.

insert softening 07.wav audio here

That was a fundraising spot I produced for 90.7 WMFE.

If you’re a NPR listener, during the middle part of the day, you’ll hear Lakshmi Singh present the top of the hour national newscasts. In the late 1990s Lakshmi was a reporter for 90.7. We recorded a number of spots for a very early morning BBC News show called “World Update”. Here’s an example of a pre-recorded fundraising spot that aired during World Update before staff could come in and start pitching live.

insert singh-howell world update pitch 02.wav audio here

That was a fundraising spot I produced from the BBC news program “World Update”. Lakshmi Singh has the purest announcer’s voice I’ve ever heard. It’s like listening to a violin.

I reviewed a number of the spots I produced for this episode. I was amazed at the sheer volume of audio I produced from 1995 to 1998. There must be more then 100 fundraising spots. Thank you gift spots for mugs, tee shirts, unbrellas, weekend getaways and the public radio staple – the tote bag.

Over the years I was involved in pledge drives that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t often we didn’t meet or exceed our goals. That success was a team effort. I worked with a group of incredible people who were dedicated to the mission of public broadcasting. To be a trusted member of the community. To be fair, accurate, entertaining and transparent. To provide unique programming not found on commercial outlets.

It was so much fun. I’m proud of all the work I’ve done for public radio.

Music bed up

That’s it for this spin of The Sonic Wheel

Thanks for listening

I’m Christopher Howell

Music bed down

Credits

Music by Radio Direct

Logo by Snehanshu Dharmadhikari on Unsplash

Header photo by Chris!