OK, you have your fantastic media alert written and now you’re wondering who to send it to???
Your event might be a news story or it might be more suited to another type of show (eg. Stateline or Today Tonight) – identify the shows that cover the type of topics similar to your story.
You’ll notice that shows like A Current Affair cover quite different subject matter to shows like 9am with David & Kim and Mornings with Kerri-Anne. Pick your market and ensure that your information will suit the show’s general format and content.
In terms of getting your information on the news, the first step is to to send your media alert (I use email) to the news room – to get the email address, simply ring the station (phone numbers of each are in the White Pages) and ask the receptionist for the news room’s/chief-of-staff’s email address.
Now if you’d like your story covered by one of the other shows, there are a couple more steps involved…
1. Watch the show on which you’d like publicity and become familiar with the types of stories they cover and the angles they take (this is really important before making any approach)
2. At the end of the show, when the credits are rolling, check-out who the producers are and make a note of their name/s (you may need to record the show and/or credits – or do a speed reading course!!!)
3. Make sure your story fits the model of the show – if it doesn’t quite suit, adapt your information so that it does (I’m not saying to lie here – I’m suggesting that you tweak your angle to suit the show)
4. Now ring the station and ask to speak with the producer whose name you’ve noted (if you don’t have a producer’s name, don’t worry, just ask to be put through to a producer for the show you’re interested in)
5. Having prepared a couple of succinct ‘selling’ points about your story, speak to the producer and let them know about your news and why it might be interesting to their audience. Even if they’re not interested immediately (expect this!) ask them for the correct spelling of their name if you don’t have it and their email address
6. Send the media alert to the producer with a personalised message and again, try to sell your story into the show
7. Ring the producer again and see what their thoughts are about your story. If you feel uncomfortable doing this, then at the very least, send through a follow-up email
In a seven-step nutshell, that’s how you approach TV publicity. This is not an exhaustive how-to list but hopefully will provide you with enough information to get you started and move on from the fear factor.
Yours in publicity