The Star 94 radioathon for Scottish Rite in December 2014 pulled in $85,000. Rob Stadler (left), Scott Lindy (third to left) and Cindy Simmons (fourth-to-left) have since left the station. CREDIT: Rodney Ho/ rho@ajc.com
By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Monday, November 30, 2015
Star 94 has ended its long-time charitable partnership with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite after the pop station’s listeners donated a mere fraction of what they gave a few years earlier.
The station raised a whopping $7.2 million between 2004 and 2010, including $1.2 million each year from 2005 to 2007 when Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke manned the airwaves over three days.
By 2013, Star cut the radiothon down to one day and raised $147,000. Last year, the station pulled in just $85,000. Star’s waning ratings at the time didn’t help matters.
So this year, Children’s Healthcare is teaming with Atlanta-based Cumulus Media and four of its radio stations: Star rival Q100, Rock 100.5, Kicks 101.5 and NewsRadio 106.7. Each station will run the radiothon for 13 hours on Friday, December 11 from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with stories from families and patients.
The power of four radio stations with four different demographic groups should help improve fundraising significantly over last year for Scottish Rite.
Star itself has gone through an ownership change this year which includes new management seeking to reinvigorate the brand.
So far, the results have been promising. Ratings have edged upwards this year. In the latest four weeks of Nielsen Audio ratings covering most of October, Star tied for ninth place with a 4.5 share and eighth place (4.9) among 25 to 54 year olds. This compares to 14th place slot a year earlier (3.4 share) and a tie for 12th (3.7) among 25 to 54 year olds.
And these encouraging numbers are happening before the arrival of Jeff Dauler, formerly of the Bert Show, in February, 2016.
Star, for Christmas, will be giving a way car leases to ten returning vets via sponsor Carriage Motors.
