For a B2B PR agency and its clients coverage can come in various forms, not just as a written content, so it’s important to recognise how to handle broadcast opportunities. In general, broadcast interviews will be either pre-recorded or live and as a result there will be differences in the approach you should adopt.
Pre-recorded interviews involve a set of questions being put to you but only certain snippets of your response actually going out on air. Often your response to one question will be the bit that’s chosen for broadcast, so you need to ensure you’re being clear and fairly concise. You’ll want to get your key messages into as many answers as you can but not go overboard and end up with a rambling, two minute response that doesn’t actually contain anything you set out to say.
Of course, the good thing about pre-recorded interviews is that you can stop and ask to give the answer again– a request that won’t be seen as out of the ordinary.
Obviously that’s not possible with live interviews. Sometimes these are viewed with more trepidation for the obvious reason that being live on air might seem like being in the firing line with no means of escape.
Live interviews do have their advantages though, the main one being that what you say will be heard rather than being at risk of an edit. You’ll have chance to get those key messages into what you say and, particularly after undergoing media training, over time you can start to perfect the art of bringing the conversation back to how you want it to be.
Michael
