March 26, 2011 / The_Mike_Johnson

Get Your Product, Book, Movie On Television and Radio Shows – PRSANY March 2011 Panel

Associated Press TV, Better TV, Director/Consumer Media at Ketchum, Eric Salzman, Facebook, Gayle King Show, Good Morning America, Harry Smith, Nicole Evatt, President Obama basketball, President Obama basketball with Harry Smith, Royal Wedding, Stefan Van Engen, Suzanne Lyons, Taylor Behrendt, The Early Show, Tracy Langer Chevrier, Vice President, YouTube

Left to Right: Eric Salzman from The Early Show, Nicole Evatt from Associated Press TV, Stefan Van Engen from Gayle King Show, Tracy Langer Chevrier from Better TV, Taylor Behrendt of Good Morning America.

The March 2011 Public Relations Society New York Chapter brought together five television producers from various broadcast networks providing guidance on what topics/subjects their shows are looking for and how you can get your product, book, movie, story, etc. on to the show.

Panelists:

Taylor Behrendt, Good Morning America

Tracy Langer Chevrier, Better TV

Stefan Van Engen, Gayle King Show

Nicole Evatt, Associated Press TV

Eric Salzman, The Early Show

Moderator:

Suzanne Lyons, Vice President, Director/Consumer Media at Ketchum

Taylor Behrendt is a producer at Good Morning America and covers news, feature pieces, politics, and health. Since she receives over one thousand e-mails a day, your email will be most effective if you include the subject/person you are pitching in the title and one to two sentences in the body of the e-mail on how you can relate to current events with contact information and person’s bio in the email. A great pitch for Taylor includes what your person/subject can add to the program (hint: something different.) One person that delivered a successful pitch created seven different segment ideas around the theme of the Royal wedding.

Tracy Langer Chevrier is an executive producer at Better TV, a woman’s lifestyle show covering health, fashion, and finance. Segments at Better TV usually feature a doctor speaking about a specific treatment for a disease or ailment and prior to the interview includes real-life personal stories from patients afflicted with that ailment. The best way to reach Tracy is through a short and concise e-mail, and include links showing video(s) of any other media appearances to see how you or your client appears/speaks on camera. Never been on television before? Get out your Flip camera and create one to post on YouTube. And where does Tracy go to find out what viewers are talking about? Facebook is a good place to start.

As a producer for the Gayle King show, Stefan Van Engen overseas all the creative and technical aspects of the show. To get his attention via email construct the email like a magazine/newspaper headline and why would Gayle King be interested in covering your guest/topic. Do your homework (watching the Gayle King show helps) to get an idea of the segments and stories that are covered. A great pitch Stefan received was a segment on prenups March 16, 2011 that had something different to offer. The policy on having paid spokespeople is evaluated on a case by case basis. If Stefan has to sum it all up when deciding on a guest for the show is:

– Is he/she a good talker?

– What can he/she deliver?

– Do you have clips of past appearances?

As a producer for the Early Show Eric Salzman oversees all Washington D.C. content, and rather than receive email, actually enjoys to receive phone calls. A thorough understanding of the show and time segments is important if you want to pitch your person or product. Would the 7:30 a.m. or 7:40 a.m. time fit or is it best as the last segment? Eric also would like to view clips of previous television appearances to get an idea how the person speaks on camera.

Lead times are:

– News segments leadtime is daily

– Health segments leadtime is one to two weeks

– Lifestyle segments leadtime is four to six weeks

And the best pitch Eric received was a suggestion of having President Obama play basketball with Harry Smith.

You can follow Tracy Chevrier on Twitter @bvtracyexecprd.

You can follow Stefan Van Engen on Twitter @stefanvanengen.

You can follow Eric Salzman on Twitter @ericsalzman.

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How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray, Piers Morgan Tonight, CBS This Morning Saturday

Skills that Get the Guest for Your Television and Radio Show

How to Get Your Sports Story or Guest on ESPN, Boomer and Carton, and USA Today