Time, Money and Needs
Donating Time, Raising Money, and Responding to Community Needs
Using mean figures to derive a per-station total, responding Idaho TV stations report running approximately 252 PSAs per week, with radio stations running 111. These figures combine all PSA spot times – from ten seconds or less up to 60 second PSAs. Using the reported rate charged for each of these spot lengths, these PSAs translate into a mean cumulative amount of $2,348,226 a year per TV station responding, and $215,219 per radio station responding.
The cumulative statewide totals based on these data show the total PSA value for Idaho TV stations as $28,178,714 and $20,876,227 for radio stations.
All responding Idaho TV stations (100%) and nearly all responding radio stations (98%) say they help charities, charitable causes or needy individuals by fund-raising or offering some other support. The mean amount raised by these TV stations was $436,833, with responding radio stations reporting a mean of $22,115. The projected cumulative amounts for this charitable giving is $5,241,996 for TV stations and $2,102,252 for radio stations who conducted some fundraising during the time period examined.
All responding Idaho TV stations (100%) and eight-in-ten responding radio stations (79%) were involved in either on-air campaigns – either through local news broadcasts, PSAs, or public affairs programming – or off-air activities to aid the victims of disasters. This is a sharp increase from the last survey, with considerable focus on this area by stations in light of the recent hurricanes in the southern United States and the tsunami relief efforts in Asia.
As one of the results of these efforts, TV broadcasters in the state reported raising $32,406,000 in direct contributions or pledges related to disaster relief during 2005, while radio broadcasters reported raising $944,158, for a projected cumulative amount of $33,350,158.
PSAs also focus largely on local issues. Among responding TV stations, respondents say that an average of 49% of PSA time is devoted to local issues; the percentage of PSAs devoted to local issues among responding radio stations was 56%.
