4 things to know before and after you pitch broadcast outlets

We’ve had several PR pros tell us this year that if you want to effectively reach your audience nowadays, you need to get your story on TV. But broadcast can be a tough medium to crack, and it requires a different type of pitching style than print or online news.

Before getting into the art of pitching broadcast, let’s tackle a common point of contention between PR pros and their clients—national vs. local news.

Getting your story on the national networks might be a nice feather in your cap, but if the audience you want to reach is catching the local news—or your client is seeking local business—that’s where you want your story to break. According to the Pew Research Center, viewership of network local affiliate news stations in the U.S. increased by 4% for the evening and late-night slots in 2020.

And just because your story airs on local TV first doesn’t mean you can’t leverage it into something bigger. You can take your local coverage and pitch the same story to the network’s national syndicate, referencing your appearance on their regional station. If you’re lucky, you may not even have to pitch them—sometimes, segments from regional networks will get picked up by their syndicate for evening news.