Scheduling a candidate for just one radio program may take several days or even weeks and involve as many as 10 to 20 phone calls. The time and effort can be reduced if you know what you are doing and whom you should talk to from the very beginning of the effort.
TALK RADIO IS A powerful medium which can and should be used to your candidate's advantage. It is an inexpensive way to complement your paid media and grassroots effort.
There are several advantages to getting your candidate on radio:
* The candidate will be able to connect with voters in a personal way by speaking directly to voters about his ideas;
* In a live, talk show format, the candidate's positions can be fully presented without worrying about speaking in sound bites (caution: the station may take sound bites from the program to play on their news breaks);
* The candidate can interact with listeners (if it is a call-in show) and demonstrate his ability to empathize with the opinions and problems of others;
* The fact the candidate is on radio will raise his profile and give his campaign legitimacy (if the media is covering you, then the public thinks you are a contender);
* The candidate can use his appearances to energize and galvanize support among grassroots activists;
* Campaign functions like fundraisers can be plugged while on the air;
* Earned radio is the optimal use of a candidate's retail campaigning time. Even a broadcast from a small station is likely to garner a few hundred listeners. Compare this to spending an hour shaking hands at a train station or speaking to 20 people at a coffee;
* Lastly, for the cash-strapped challenger campaign, there is no cash invested in earned radio, only time.
Before the Launch
Before you launch your earned radio media campaign be sure your candidate is up to the task. Ask yourself the following questions:
* Does the candidate know what he or she thinks?
* Is he or she eloquent enough to communicate his or her thoughts effectively to the average radio audience?
a Is the candidate prepared to answer tough and unanticipated questions from the host and listeners without losing his or her temper or appearing confused?
* Is the candidate disciplined enough to stick to the script prepared by him and his or her staff or is he or she prone to come up with new policy initiatives heretofore not discussed with or tested by staff?
* Is the candidate going to make accurate statements or will he or she play fast and loose with the truth when explaining his or her positions or criticizing his or her opponent?
* In general, does he or she sound like a likeable person, even when faced with a negative question?
If the answer to all these questions is yes, you can start scheduling your candidate on radio. If the answer is no to even one question, work with the candidate until he or she is ready to do it right.
Hard Work
Getting a political candidate on radio is not a matter of conjuring up a grand plan (although having a plan can be helpful) - it is a matter of hard work. Scheduling a candidate for just one program may take several days or even weeks and involve as many as 10 to 20 phone calls. The time and effort involved can be reduced if you know what you are doing and whom you should talk to from the very beginning of the effort.
* The first step in your earned radio media plan is getting a list of every radio station that broadcasts into your district. That includes stations that broadcast across the border from a neighboring state. Most states have media services which will provide you with a list of stations either in a book or on disk.
* Once you have your list, start calling each station. Expect that several stations may operate out of the same location and have the same ownership. As a result, you may find yourself in the embarrassing situation of calling what you believe to be different stations because they have different call letters and different phone numbers. Just get your records straight and move on.
Don't bother initially asking for the news director or the station manager, those people are frequently busy or absent and they are likely to take days to return your call if they do at all. Speak to the receptionist. Tell him or her why you are calling and ask them what programs might be willing to interview a candidate for public office. Find out the names and phone numbers of the hosts and producers of those shows. Also, get the name of the news director.
In many small- to medium-sized stations, the talk show host, news director and news anchor are all the same person. You may even find some receptionists who double as producers for one or more shows.
* Make a form and keep a record about the shows and people at each station on separate pages. If you are working on a statewide campaign in a large state, this process of calling every station in the state will take an aggressive, full-time person between one and two weeks.
* Once you have completed your inventory of programs that may be interested in a political guest, start scheduling your candidate for appearances.
You cannot start doing this too early in the campaign. If a radio host thinks his listeners enjoyed the candidate, the host will schedule him again in a few months or when an item of public interest comes up that can be addressed by the candidate. So, get your candidate scheduled as soon as possible so you can get him on the same show several times before the election.
* Make sure you have a biography of your candidate ready to fax or e-mail to any station that expresses an interest or makes a commitment to interview your candidate.
You are most likely to reach the news director, producer and morning hosts by calling before 8:00 a.m. If they don't come to the phone, leave a message and call again in a few hours.
No matter what, don't give up unless you have personally spoken to a decision maker and been given a flat out "no" for a particular program. If someone says they can't use your candidate on their show, ask them if they can recommend a program on their station that might want to interview your candidate. Most news directors are always looking for something to put on the air; so even if there is no interview format on the station, ask if the news director would like to speak to the candidate to record some news bits to be used throughout the day.
Scheduling Tips
Some stations will interview their guests for five minutes and others will keep a guest on for an hour. If you believe your candidate is engaging, schedule him or her for as long as possible. If you are worried about your candidate getting off message in a long format, then only schedule for 15-minute segments.
Be sure to check the programs available on weekends. They are frequently different than weekday shows and their hosts are eager to find interesting guests. Additionally, do not hesitate to book your candidate on different programs on the same station. Just make sure the hosts of the show are aware of the double booking in case they don't want to do it. Better to be honest up front so you can have a good relationship as the election nears.
The relationship of trust and dependability you create early on will serve you well when you find you desperately need to get your candidate on the air to announce a new program or answer unfair charges by his opponent.
Most stations would prefer to interview the candidate in the station. If you have the time, an in-person interview is to the candidate's advantage since the broadcast sound is usually superior to a phone interview. However, in a busy campaign you will need to schedule most interviews by phone.
It is best if the candidate uses a landline rather than a cell phone, which is notoriously unreliable, so plan if possible to have the candidate at a location where he can use a wirebased phone. This will also make the interviewer more secure that he won't lose his guest in the middle of a program where callers are lined up to ask questions.
As a rule, radio shows prefer to call the candidate so they can have him ready to go a few minutes before the show begins. You may not want to give the candidate's number to any media people, and in that case you must reassure the station that the candidate will call the station on time.
Make sure you get several numbers to contact the station. Give the host or producer the number of the campaign headquarters as well as your pager or cell number so they can contact you in the event the candidate has not called the station by the proscribed hour.
There is nothing worse than having a radio program advertise a guest and then have the guest fail to call in. It is embarrassing for the host and you may never be able to gain his confidence again. This goes directly to the credibility of the campaign and candidate, so don't mess up.
Make sure details about the radio interviews are written on the candidate's schedule as far in advance as possible. The more information you share with your candidate, the more comfortable he will feel and the better he will perform. At a minimum, include the time and length of the interview, whether it is live or taped, whether listeners will be calling in with questions, the call letters and numbers of the station, the name of the program and host, the number of watts of the station, the stations broadcast distance and area, the station format and if you can find out, the political leanings and personal areas of interest of the interviewer.
Grassroots Reinforcement
You can use your grassroots army to buttress your candidate's appearances and to dog your opponent's appearances. Any time your candidate is going to be interviewed on a station that allows callers, make sure your supporters from that broadcast area know about it and have the phone number to call in advance. This takes some time and effort but can go a long way to creating the appearance of popular support for your campaign. It will also increase your candidate's confidence and comfort while on the air.
If your grassroots army is led by volunteer coordinators, make sure you fax or e-mail them a list of questions you want your candidate's supporters to call the show with. Also ask them to record the program so the campaign will have a record of anything the candidate says.
Make sure the questions are designed to allow your candidate to smoothly glide into his prepared remarks. Questions for his opponent should be designed to catch the opponent off guard and make him take a position that is either unpopular or hypocritical. If the opposition candidate is going to be on the air with your candidate this is doubly important. By flooding the station phone lines with supporters, you will unnerve your opponent no matter how well he thinks his campaign is going.
This was illustrated in the 1996 U.S. Senate primary campaign in Illinois when Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra and state Rep. Al Salvi faced off on a live call in show in Chicago. Four out of five callers supported Salvi and attacked Kustra even though Kustra led by a wide margin in the polls. The lieutenant governor was so shaken that he accused the two hosts of only allowing his opponent's supporters on the air and vowed never to come on their show again.
The truth was that they took calls in the order they were received. Salvi's campaign had simply stacked the deck to assure a positive outcome for their side. Using these guerilla tactics on radio and elsewhere, Salvi scored a surprising come-from-behind victory.
In a large state where you have a statewide candidate who has something interesting to say you should be able to schedule your candidate to be interviewed between two and four hundred times on radio during the primary and general election cycle. This does not include pre-recorded news bits that may be played a dozen times during the course of the day.
The publicity garnered from an aggressive earned media campaign can make the difference in a tight race. And the best part is - it's free.
[Sidebar]
BE SURE TO CHECK THE PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ON WEEKENDS. THEY ARE FREQUENTLY DIFFERENT THAN WEEKDAY SHOWS AND THEIR HOSTS ARE EAGER TO FIND NEW GUESTS.
[Sidebar]
YOU ARE MOST LIKELY TO REACH THE NEWS DIRECTOR, PRODUCER AND MORNING HOSTS BY CALLING BEFORE 8:00 a.m. If they don't COME TO THE PHONE, LEAVE A MESSAGE AND CALL AGAIN IN A FEW HOURS. NO MATTER WHAT, DON'T GIVE UP UNLESS YOU HAVE PERSONALLY SPOKEN TO A DECISION-MAKER AND BEEN GIVEN A FLAT OUT "NO" FOR A PARTICULAR PROGRAM.
[Author Affiliation]
Dan Patlak is a veteran of dozens of federal, state and local campaigns. He currently serves as public information officer for Board of Review Commissioner Maureen Murphy, the highest elected Republican official in Cook County government. He can be reached via e-mail at rpblcn827@aol.com.
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