Restricted contests discriminate

We pledged in your Spring drive by phoning in. We don't think it's fair that you had to pledge via the web to enter the "Public Radio Takes You There" contest. That discriminates against people who don't have web access or who just don't want to pledge that way. Everyone who calls you should have an equal chance.

--name withheld by request, via Comment Line (513-529-1280)

[General Manager Cleve Callison replies:

There's certainly nothing unusual about providing an incentive to encourage certain behaviors. For example, we want to encourage credit card use, so we offer Newsweek during the drive to such pledgers. In this case we definitely want to encourage web pledges. And since this was a national contest run by the non-profit group that handles web pledges for many public radio and TV stations, we didn't make the rules, though we did choose to participate. In this case an easy solution is to pledge over the phone and make a Contest Entry Only selection on the web.]