Media Training Worldwide

Don’t Date Yourself

Before you do any taped or recorded TV or radio interview, you should always ask the reporter or host interviewing you, “When will this segment likely air?” If you don’t find this out, you may make some comment that makes sense to you the moment you said it, but wouldn’t make sense to anyone else who heard it at a different time.

For example, one year I was being interviewed in advance of the Academy Awards on how movie stars make good and bad acceptance speeches. Since it was two days before the awards ceremony, I told the radio interviewer during a taped recording, “On Sunday night, we will find out if Johnny Depp does better than he did during the Golden Globe Awards.” Of course the show I was taping on a Friday afternoon wouldn’t air until after the telecast of the Oscars, thereby making my comments useless and inappropriate for the radio station’s audience.

Fortunately, in my case the radio host was willing to do a quick edit after our interview in order to salvage most of the interview. But you can’t always get that lucky. Your goal should always be to make life as easy as possible for TV or radio producers, editors and journalists. The less work they have to do to get your ideas onto the air, the better off for you.

So ask when the show will air. Sometimes, especially in the case of a network TV newscast, they journalists might not know. Try to write down the tentative air date in front of you (if you are doing a phone interview) and position your comments accordingly so that you do not talk about events that have already happened to the audience in the future tense.