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Talk Radio Pays for Attention

Newstalk 1010 CFRB in Toronto is using some eyebrow-raising stunts to promote its slate of talk shows, including hiring prostitutes.

Newstalk 1010 CFRB in Toronto is using some eyebrow-raising stunts to promote its slate of talk shows, including hiring prostitutes.

In late January, the station, working with a local advertising agency, hired two women to carry signs reading “Should prostitution be legal? We need to talk.” alongside the CFRB logo. According to National Post, the advertising agency, zig, paid the women the “normal fee that they would get for a job” to carry the signs for an hour on a street corner in a Toronto red-light district.

Previously, CFRB has paid homeless people to hold signs questioning the legality of panhandling. As part of the current “We need to talk.” campaign, the station plans to hand out bottles of hand sanitizer labeled with the question “Does the flu shot really work?” and to post signs on cigarette bins asking “Should smokers be denied healthcare?”

According to an interview on the blog Media in Canada, the goal of the guerilla advertising campaign is primarily to build word of mouth interest in the station. However, campaigners with the Bad Date Coalition, which advocates for the rights and safety of sex workers, have called the campaign exploitative.

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