OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has determined that a St. John’s radio station violated the contest provision of the Broadcast Code during a scavenger hunt-style contest for its listeners.
CKIX-FM (99.1 Hits FM) in St. John’s, NF ran a contest called ‘Missing 9’ in Fall 2008. The object of the mini-scavenger hunt was an a physical object in the shape of the digit, which the station announced was hidden somewhere in the area. Listeners were encouraged to travel around the city hunting for it, using clues revealed by the station on-air. The person who found the number and brought it to the station would be declared the winner of the prize, which was $10,000 in cash.
However, listeners complained that the contest was unfair because some of the clues were “vague or misleading”, and because the 9 was ultimately found in a pick-up truck that did not arrive at the final hiding spot until the day that it was found.
The radio station explained that it had moved the 9 part way through the contest due to “unforeseen circumstances”. The digit had originally been hidden inside a locker on the premises of a self-storage facility, without the knowledge of that facility. When the company put up a ‘No Trespassing’ sign, the station was faced with the task of moving the 9 while still trying to ensure that the previous clues remained valid. Hits FM chose to move it onto a pick-up truck that was then parked just outside the gate of the storage facility.
The CBSC’s Atlantic Regional Panel examined the complaint under Clause 12 of the CAB Code of Ethics, which requires broadcasters to ensure that contests are conducted legitimately and fairly. The Panel noted that there was “no problem” with conducting this type of scavenger hunt contest and that it was reasonable to expect that clues would be vague and open to more than one interpretation.
With respect to the execution of the contest, however, the Panel concluded that moving the 9 led to the contest being unfair and therefore in violation of Clause 12. It explained its reasoning as follows:
“To begin, the Panel considers that the station’s decision to hide the 9 in a locked storage room at a privately-owned facility was ill-conceived (although not ill-intentioned), as CKIX-FM itself learned the hard way when the storage facility put up its No Trespassing sign. […]
[…] The station was then forced to hastily alter its plans, moving the 9 from the locker within the facility to a location outside its locked gate. That was, of course, unfair to those who had already laboured over the clues. The unfairness of the situation was further exacerbated by the fact that the 9 did not arrive at its final hiding place, where it had never before been located, until the morning of October 6. Effectively, in that location, the 9 had not been generally accessible to the public until the truck arrived at the spot, meaning that, even if listeners had been attentive to the clues, they did not have the opportunity to win the month-long contest before that moment.”
