|
Polls can be very revealing and I'm not talking about polling results. Hotline host Rick Howe dismissed polls that showed overwhelming support for Halifax's bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Howe didn't believe the polls and offered various theories for his reluctance to believe the results. Even the word 'FIXED' was used.... but I won't go there.
However, Howe touts polls that show the Hotline is the number one talk radio show in Halifax. "We're number one'! he exclaimed today. I can't blame Howe for defending his turf, he can hear the footsteps and they're Krystal Klear, but is he really number one? What do you call a person that dismisses polls on one hand, only to tout polls when in his favour? No explanation needed on that.
Like Howe, I can simply dismiss the poll showing the Hotline is the number one talk radio show in Halifax because I don't like the results, or I can take a different approach. I'll take a different approach to show just how small an audience the Hotline attracts and the irony in this exercise is the fact that Howe is providing ammunition against his own popularity.
Recently, the Hotline started running polls on their blog Website. For the first couple of polls people were able to vote as many times as they wanted. Guess what? They did, and on Easter Monday, Howe learned a lesson on Internet polling - utilize security features to ensure your poll isn't freeped. Well, the poll that day was a fraud with close to 2500 votes cast. Howe recognized the fact that a person was voting over, and over and over again. He even asked that person to call his show.
The next day, a security feature was added to the polls and people were limited to just one vote.
I won't get into the tech details, but I was able to defeat the security and vote twice on Tuesday. But to be fair, I voted for both available choices, not to skew the results.
With the security feature in place, a grand total of 13 votes were cast in the Tuesday Hotline online poll, despite the fact that Howe continuously encouraged his listeners visit the Website and vote. Two of those registered votes were mine.
 Today, with the show over, a grand total of 8 votes were cast in the daily question(See screen shot to the left). Howe has ceased announcing the number of votes cast and now only refers to the percentages.
Advertisers will probably find Howe's polling extremely valuable. I wouldn't be surprised to see polls discontinued on the Hotline blog, or security removed in order to allow an all you can vote option. If Howe's smart, he'll get Amber to find a poll that only displays percentages. ;-)
NOTE TO AMBER: Who thought of this silly poll idea anyway? |
