We got a call from Sky News late on Saturday night asking if we would be their studio guest for a few hours on Sunday.
Time to call Gran and set the Sky box! It's great exposure and any self respecting egotistical PR should thank the TV gods for such an opportunity.
It's a no brainer isn't it?
Not really.
Firstly, at 10pm on a Saturday night our mobiles are often switched off. It’s called downtime. There is nothing worse than being out with your partner, family or friends yet spending the whole time staring into an iPhone screen. As a friend once remarked, “I thought I was going out with you, not you and 200 hundred of your friends.” Point taken.
Secondly, what’s wrong with a bit of advanced notice? OK, broadcast news is a fluid beast that chops and changes more often than David Cameron’s opinions, but this particular event was pencilled in one week earlier. It wasn’t a sudden train crash, political resignation or Icelandic ash cloud. Instead it was a pre-planned event.
All it would have taken is a simple phone call a few days earlier asking whether we would be willing to give up our Sunday afternoon to be a studio guest. It’s not hard – all Sky News had to do was pick up the phone, type in a few numbers and, hey presto, studio guest booked.
We’re sure a few people reading this might think, well, you were their third choice and if the call came on Saturday night it must have been because of another guest’s cancellation. Maybe, but who cares? For any PRO or journalist, unless you are a diva or own an ego the size of Tony Blair's, even being put on standby as third choice would have been fine.
Which begs the question; what does the Sky News forward planning department really do?
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