Rough guide to radio PR

According to the latest audience figure 44.4 million adults listen to BBC and commercial radio every week. Rainier PR has published a rough guide to radio to show how to tap this often neglected PR opportunity.

Introduction
There are two types of radio station, namely commercial - funded by advertising revenue, and BBC - funded by the UK license fee. Commercial local radio is mainly music based while BBC local stations are primarily speech based.

So why do so many PR companies have little success when it comes to pitching to radio stations? For some its fear of the unknown and for others it’s a glaring lack of knowledge of the medium.

As with all good PR you need to know your audience and as in the case of written publications where your audience is their readers, so your audience when pitching to radio is the station’s listeners. However, don’t mistake pitching to radio for a ‘sales’ opportunity. In the same way magazines and newspapers want something more than a simple ‘product’ pitch so too do radio stations.

Pitching radio
Although it would be impossible to know the exact needs of every station in the UK, you do have to at least think what the average person listening to that station would be most interested in hearing and pitch accordingly. For a news story, it will probably require a re-write of your press release.

Broadcast journalists write for speech and have very little time to get a story across so they do not want copious pages of technical detail. Nor do they want you to send them photographs, but plenty of PR agencies do. In fact there are radio station newsrooms which have blocked PR agencies emails because of the level of unsuitable press releases they’ve sent through. What they do want is someone available for interview, particularly if you have quoted them in a press release.

Pitching to radio does not just mean having a client available for an interview. You also need to consider all the other opportunities available including giveaways, promotions, or even sending a station product samples so presenters can discuss them on-air.

Equally when pitching to presenters rather than journalists don’t always think first of breakfast and late afternoon drive time shows as a primary target, most tend to already be content heavy, so make sure you also consider pitching to ‘daytime’ or ‘evening’ shows.

The interview
You should always be prepared to arrange an interview at short notice. If you call with a story and the journalist is keen to cover it you may find they want to get the audio in the bag ASAP. Even if they’re not intending to use it that day, it means they have everything they need for a story (with audio) with no chance of it falling through, and the time to edit and write it up ready for broadcast.

Getting a spokesperson to an ISDN line can also help your chance of success. ISDN gives the impression the spokesperson is in the same room and is as good as a ‘face to face’ interview. Some stations have targets for how many pieces of ‘quality’ (recorded face to face or over ISDN) audio they try and get every day. Briefing your spokesperson is perhaps even more important than with a print publication. ‘Umms’ and ‘aahhs’ don’t get written down but are painfully obvious on radio.

Radio reach
But how do you justify the value of radio PR, particularly on commercial stations? BBC radio stations account for a weekly audience of around 33 million. But interestingly, the CRCA claims almost two thirds of all local radio listened to is ‘commercial’ local radio - that’s over 30.7 million adults tuning in every week.

Unlike a magazine or a newspaper, radio is not a medium where the listener necessarily needs to give the full focus of their attention. You can listen to the radio in the car, as you get ready for work and in many cases as you walk through a shopping centre, meaning you have a far greater chance of getting your message across.

Evaluating the importance of any coverage is straightforward: for magazines and newspapers you have circulation figures, for radio the equivalent is Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR). You need to familiarise yourself with how this works along with terms like ‘reach’ - which is the percentage of the market held by a radio station, and the TSA, or transmission area.

Pitching to radio is not rocket science and need not be difficult or impossible, nor does it need to be the job of a specialised agency. All it really takes is the time needed to familiarise yourself with radio as a medium.

Further information
Rainier PR has published ‘Rough Guide to Radio PR’, detailing the contacts to pitch stories to at radio stations across the UK. The agency also implements nationwide radio PR programmes on behalf of clients. Please email Emma Ballard for further information.

Tips for pitching radio