Featur e
Five tips for getting on the small screen
Make your pitch personal: A booker will be much more receptive if they know the pitch is crafted es- pecially for them and their network instead of a blind carbon copy to every reporter in your address book.
Write something: If you pen an op-ed or blog post about a particular topic, it will immediately give you credibility. Make sure to include a link to your writing in your e-mail pitch.
Play up your specialty: Whether you’re an expert in polling Southern voters or a liberal union organizer, every consultant has a niche. If it’s relevant, make sure the booker knows about it—it will only add to your credibility.
Be available: Weekends, early mornings, and holi- days are when bookers find themselves scrounging for guests. If you’re responsive to their request and perform well during those time slots, bookers will take note and likely return the favor.
Say thanks: After you’re done with your hit, make sure you circle back with the television booker to show your appreciation. It’s an easy way for you to stay on the booker’s mind for the next potential opening.
Meet the Bookers Television bookers hold the key to getting on cable tele- vision, but reaching them is frequently a challenge. First of all, their contact information is rarely available online and tends to be most easily accessed through pricey me- dia directories. Second, there’s often a high turnover rate on booking staffs, which are composed mostly of young employees.
The high turnover rate can also be chalked up to the
pace of the job, which often requires unpredictable hours. Hilary Lefebvre, who was a booker for CNN’s Crossfire, remembers the grueling schedule all too well. “We’d start making calls at nine in the morning and needed to have two people booked and totally set up within a couple hours,” she recalls. Lefebvre, who now runs her own pri- vate media booking firm, On Air Strategy LLC, recom- mends hiring a professional to make initial introductions to booking staff. If hiring a professional is not an option, another good
way to meet a booker is to ask a friend or colleague to make an introduction. Despite the high turnover rate, personal contacts matter a great deal in the television news business and bookers take their guest Rolodex with them when they change shows or networks. It always pays to make the connection as personal as possible.
However, consultants who offer regular television commentary also warn that their appearances do not necessarily translate into big bucks. Regular commen- tators from both parties say that appearing on televi- sion rarely leads directly to landing a client. “People who haven’t been on often assume that there’s a direct corre- lation,” says Heye. “There certainly is not. I can tell you the number of clients I got from television appearances: It was exactly one, and it wasn’t a particularly high-pay- ing one.” Also, keep in mind the cost-benefit ratio of doing
television. There’s a significant time commitment in- volved in appearing on camera, especially if the studio is far from your base. Between travel time, putting on makeup, and waiting for your turn on camera, the av- erage three-minute television hit can eat up anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes of your time—and that’s on top of any time spent preparing for the interview or pitching yourself to bookers. Nonetheless, many consul- tants find going on television gives them a competitive edge in the market when it comes to pitching them- selves to new clients.
20 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
Bernie Morton discussing federal politics on Sun News Network
How to pitch for the small screen If you’re reaching out to a television booker on your own, media experts stress that e-mail is always the best form of contact. Television bookers often do not have time to listen to voicemails while working the phones trying to nail down guests, so most often a simple, casual e-mail pitch does the trick. Lefebvre recommends using the e-mail subject line to briefly introduce yourself and what you are available to dis- cuss—ideally a pertinent news topic of the day. The body of your pitch should include a sentence or
two on why you are the ideal guest to discuss the topic at hand. Often the best way to show this is with a link to something you have already written about it. “One of the best ways to get on television is to write,” says Ron
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