Television media relations is often considered to be the icing on the cake.
Clients love TV because of its massive audiences and influence.
As former broadcast journalists, securing opportunities for clients
on television is one of our greatest strengths.

As journalists we planned, produced and reported on TV stories ourselves, therefore have extensive knowledge of what it takes to get a story on-air.

Our experience means we understand what makes an outstanding visual story. It’s also given us excellent contacts in all the UK’s national and regional television stations, as well as many abroad.

We generate stories we know will appeal to broadcasters and place them editorially on television. We can also offer a reactive approach, creating opportunities for your spokespeople by hi-jacking other stories in the news agenda.

We will tell you what ingredients you need to successfully place a story on TV. This includes which channels and programmes are most suited to your target audience along with suggestions for spokespeople, filming opportunities and locations.

PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES

Television is all about the visuals and this is where good TV PR support can be the difference between a story making air – or not. The first question a TV news planner or journalist will ask is: what can we film? If filming is difficult or time consuming a follow up question might be: Is there any B-roll? B-roll is around 6-8 minutes worth of roughly edited footage that is produced by television PR agencies like Shout! Communications on behalf of a client; it’s distributed to broadcasters free of charge and any copyright issues for them to re-edit in their own style. Read more about B-roll here.

Television is all about the visuals and this is where good TV PR support can really help, with the production of B-roll.

B-roll has become invaluable since the start of the pandemic, which has made it more difficult for broadcasters to go out and film their own material. As restrictions ease however some crews are going out on location – and that’s where our television PR expertise can help you provide them with the best pictures.

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Securing TV Coverage

Providing great visuals, being able to sum up your story in a sentence and having case studies are the three key ingredients to securing TV coverage. Providing B-roll will often be the deciding factor in whether your story is picked up.

SPOKESPEOPLE

Your spokesperson is crucial to the success of your television campaign and, in order to maximise coverage, it helps to have more than one. Broadcasters have a bigger appetite than ever for live interviews and PR generated stories are more likely to happen earlier in the day than later. So having multiple spokespeople means you can facilitate simultaneous interview requests. For example, once guests are fully welcomed back into studios, if you have interest from BBC Breakfast we would recommend having one spokesperson in London and another in Manchester. This means you’ll be able to accommodate both Breakfast and other national television opportunities.

Before committing to a spokesperson, it’s important to make sure they are happy to be as flexible as possible. Will they commit to live interviews as well as pre-recorded ones? This is an issue that can often come up, so it’s good to check beforehand.

Will they get up early and stay up late? As we’ve said, PR generated stories have a better chance of getting on air earlier on in the day, when there’s less competition for news stories – but if the story is strong it may last all day. As with anything, better to warn a spokesperson ahead of time.

Sometimes the perfect spokesperson does not work for the brand you’re promoting, but is a paid-for brand ambassador, sometimes known as a third party spokesperson. For more about how we can help source a celebrity or brand ambassador, click here.

Thinking of launching your own TV PR campaign?

CASE STUDIES

Case studies are a great aid in the quest to secure television coverage. They can make a TV PR  campaign feel relevant to the audience and they’re often very useful “wallpaper” pictures. A research story, for example, may be difficult to illustrate but if you have a case study you can say: “This woman is one of the X thousand people diagnosed with this condition each year….”

TARGETED AUDIENCES

TV can also be a great way to reach a relatively targeted audience; for example, if you want to reach women, securing a slot on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, This Morning or Lorraine is the holy grail. Alternatively, if you want to reach industry professionals and board directors, perhaps business slots on BBC Breakfast, Newsnight or News Channel are the way to go.

COSTS

Clients sometimes fear a television PR agency will be costly. It can be an unpredictable beast which is why we offer the service on a part fixed-fee, part results basis – or, if done in conjunction with another service, on a totally pay-on-results structure.

NEXT STEPS

We have some key questions to ask you, to see whether your story is television PR worthy.

  • What is the story? Can you sum it up in a single sentence, as if you are telling a friend.
  • Does it have talkability? Stories need to engage and entertain.  They need to be significant/interesting/unusual/funny to stand out from the crowd – rather than dull and “so what”…..
  • What can you see? Is there a stunt, a product or a case study that broadcasters can access and film for themselves.   And/or is there B-roll, pictures that TV journalists can use to edit together a video package about the story.
  • Who and where are the spokespeople? Since the pandemic a lot of interviews still take place via Zoom.   But increasingly TV news programmes are inviting guests back into their own studios.   That means, if you want to be on UK national television, you need a spokesperson in London and sometimes Manchester (for BBC Breakfast) and/or Leeds (for Channel 4).

Securing coverage on television is difficult.  There are far fewer outlets than there are for radio, so it’s important to have all your ducks in a line before approaching any broadcaster.

If you’re not sure whether your television PR campaign is strong enough get in touch to chat it through.

Let’s Talk