THINGS WE TELL OUR CLIENTS ABOUT BROADCAST NEWS

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  • Almost every significant broadcaster around the world subscribes to at least one of the main international broadcast news agencies which makes them a powerful route to communicate genuine news stories.
  • We produce news edits not VNRs. The term VNR is often associated with marketing material dressed up as news (which isn’t our thing at all).
  • Live interviews from interesting locations can enhance a story for international broadcasters.
  • News is fast-moving, fluid and driven by events. For most stories we can ‘test the water’ with broadcasters in advance and tell our clients what level of coverage they are likely to achieve, but no-one can guarantee broadcast news coverage until it is aired.
  • Beware of promises to guarantee the broadcast of news or documentary footage on large audience TV stations in return for a fee. It won’t appear on normal news programmes (where coverage is earned entirely on editorial merit) and it may be aired in ‘dead’ broadcast time with little or no audience.
  • Cameras and video formats are constantly evolving; video that looks good on the web won’t necessarily be broadcast quality.
  • Like everyone else, broadcasters are cost-conscious. With tighter budgets and fewer staff it’s often hard for broadcasters to cover anything more than the ‘must have’ stories with their own resources, particularly if a more marginal story involves expensive or time-consuming travel.
  • We can use an electronic ‘fingerprint’ to track whether, where and when footage has been used on almost 2,000 stations world-wide.