Last week I got the chance to meet Dominic Laurie, a Business Presenter at the BBC, at a ‘media Q&A’ event organised by PR services provider Gorkana. Dominic contributes to the ‘Wake Up to Money’ show on 5live, and to Friday’s edition of the ‘Today’ show on Radio 4, where he hosts a regular business interview slot with the heads of big and well-known companies.
The session provided a useful insight into a medium that often falls outside of the comfort zone of PRs more accustomed to dealing with print media. This is perhaps understandable – print journalists share roughly the same working hours of the PR community. They cover new stories and issues on a rolling, day-by-day basis, so if you supply them with a piece of news, you can expect it to appear online later that day and possibly in print the following morning.
Radio and TV are different, and the broadcast journalists staffing programmes work to different schedules. That sounds obvious, but it’s a fact that can sometimes get lost in the rush to get a story out. A common anecdote among radio producers is the time they were pitched an image-led story by a hapless account executive.
However, given the influence and reach of broadcast outlets, familiarity with the processes by which radio and TV programmes are put together should be considered an essential part of the PR toolkit. The quality of the coverage that can result really does justify the effort involved.
Talking my language
The majority of the time, an essential part of pitching a story to radio is having a suitable spokesperson available to offer their account in a recorded studio or ISDN interview (standard phone calls just don’t cut it unfortunately). It’s important for them to be able to discuss the issues in a way that resonates with the audience.
Dominic distinguished between the different types of listener the programmers at 5live and Radio 4 aim for: younger, middle- and working-class listeners for the former, senior executives and other ABC1-ers for the latter. Even for Radio 4, however, he was keen to point out that business jargon doesn’t translate well on air. Even fairly common terms like ‘EMEA’ run the risk of obscuring the point your spokesperson is trying to make. Brevity and clarity are the hallmarks of a successful radio spokesperson: the ability to convey a point or explain an issue in 30-second sound bites will vastly increase their chances of being invited to appear on air again.
A range of voices
When discussing his day-to-day working environment, Dominic touched upon the current relocation of some BBC services to Salford. Though clearly posing a host of practical challenges for programme teams, the ultimate goal of the move is to refashion the Beeb into a more inclusive organisation that does a better job of representing the country outside of London and the Home Counties. This mission extends to its editorial output, business reports included.
Though the average company spokesperson used for big media opps continues to be London-based, white, middle-class and middle-aged, the BBC’s business teams are interested in including different types of voices from the world of commerce. This presents opportunities for organisations with non-traditional representatives, such as women in senior roles and those from areas of the country outside of London.
The early morning crew
One final point of interest when considering the effectiveness of radio for PR is how the audience changes throughout the day. Given the choice between securing an interview slot at 5:30 or 11am, most PRs would instinctively pick the latter – a daytime show reaches more listeners, surely? Not necessarily. Dominic was keen to dispel this assumption, pointing out that the five minute news bulletin at 5:20 reaches half a million people, a bigger audience than some programmes that are aired later in the day. Hard to believe if you’re as bad in the mornings as I am, but important to bear in mind when assessing the value of potential broadcast coverage opportunities.