A radio promotion that’s caused a lot of talk, concern, and upset in Calgary has decided to save $10,000 from burning up in a crematorium.
The show made the announcement that the money would be saved from destruction, winning the vote by an overwhelming margin, at about 91 percent.
$10,000 will go to the winner of the draw and another $10,000 will be donated to the Children's Miracle Network.
No one was more relieved about the vote than the radio hosts. "I think it's a collective sigh of relief," Ryan Lindsay, host on AMP Radio's morning show said. "A feeling of redemption for the City of Calgary. After voting to burn it last week, this week, to see a number like that, 91 percent in favour of banking it, it feels like a wash."
AMP Radio’s ‘Bank it or Burn it’ campaign let people vote on the fate of a sum of money offered by the station.
If voters chose ‘Bank it’, one of the people who voted that way gets to pocket the money.
If voters chose ‘Burn it’, the money will go up in smoke.
That’s just what happened last week, when Ryan and Katie of AMP’s morning show burned up $5,000 in cash in a crematorium.
They said they were forced to, with a vote of 54 percent in favour of tossing the money in the fire.
Ryan says that this type of promotion is common on radio stations.
“Every single media entity in the country, in the world, spends money on promotion. The $5,000 that we, over the course of two weeks, took and have now unfortunately burnt is a fraction of what almost any other entity in this city spends on their marketing costs alone and it’s garnered a lot of talk.”
“While we do feel horrible about the actual burning of the money, it has garnered a lot more publicity than we could have initially thought.”
Calgary Police say that it is not a criminal act to destroy bank notes and the laws under the Currency Act only apply to the destruction and defacement of coins.
