Can startups get on broadcast? If so, how? While it’s not impossible, it is definitely harder (and more painful).
Consider the following situation. A founder is told on Tuesday that the slot is confirmed for Thursday morning. On Wednesday night a bigger story breaks, and by Thursday lunchtime the segment is gone. Somebody then has to explain what happened, and if that explanation only arrives after the fact, it lands as a failure rather than as the ordinary working of live news.
Broadcast is its own discipline, and it is one of the most misunderstood parts of PR. Most founders and in-house teams pitch it as though it were print with a camera attached, and that assumption is where the majority of broadcast efforts come apart. I mean… almost nothing about the pitch, the timeline or the commitment works the same way.
Producers are often casting, not commissioning
What does that mean? Well, broadcast journalists are usually not looking for a company with something to sell. They are looking for a credible expert who can add something to a story they are already telling. Hopefully not new information for you. But, really paying attention to that, making it the mindset, is something that can pay off. Think of the ‘pitch’ as something that improves a segment that is already going ahead, rather than asking a producer to make room for your news.
Which means the work starts well before the pitch. It means tracking the news agenda in real time, understanding which stories have legs, and knowing exactly where your spokesperson’s expertise sits inside them. It means being ready at any time. When a subject is dominating global coverage, the opportunity is real but short. The skill is recognising that window early enough to move on it, rather than noticing it once the coverage has moved on.
This is also why a generic broadcast push tends to fail. There is no standing demand for a founder to come on television and talk about their company. There is intermittent, sharp demand for someone who can explain a thing the newsroom is already trying to explain that week.
The pitch is a different document
A print pitch sells a story. A broadcast pitch quite often offers a person that can weigh in. Especially in the startup world, it’s a much more accessible opportunity. It’s true that at later stages a company can be the focus of the story.
The case you are making is that your spokesperson can speak with authority, handle live questions under pressure, and communicate a complex idea in plain language inside a very short window. These interviews tend to run up to about five minutes, and much of that time belongs to the presenter. Someone who needs three minutes of preamble before reaching the point is not a fit, whatever their expertise.
The pitch has to make that case quickly and clearly, because producers are busy and the turnaround from interest to on-air can be very fast. A long, carefully structured document that arrives two days later has already lost. Speed and precision matter more here than polish.
A confirmed slot is not a confirmed slot
Once a slot is agreed, the real test begins.
Broadcast schedules move constantly, driven by the news agenda rather than by anyone’s plans. A confirmed slot can shift earlier, shift later, or be pulled entirely if something bigger breaks at the last minute. None of that is a failure on anyone’s part. Live news simply works that way, and any PR who tells a client otherwise is setting them up for a bad experience.
The right moment to say this is before the pitch goes out, not on the morning the slot disappears. A client who has been told in advance that a slot can move treats a change of schedule as part of the process. A client who has been promised certainty treats the same event as somebody’s mistake, and the relationship takes the damage instead of the news cycle. A client who keeps rejecting broadcast opps because they can’t prioritise them over other things will close the doors to them in the future. In the end, broadcast is a lot about alignment and being in the right mindset before anything even happens…
What the client side has to bring
What broadcast asks of a spokesperson is rare, and media training covers very little of it.
The requirement is the ability to stay on standby, rearrange a day without complaint, and be ready to go the moment the call comes. It means staying calm when the schedule shifts underneath a plan that was agreed 48 hours earlier. Combined with a clear, sharp perspective on a topic already dominating the conversation, that is what a producer wants on the other end of the line.
This has a practical consequence for how you choose a spokesperson. The most senior person is not automatically the right one. Look for whoever combines real authority on the subject with a diary that can absorb a same-day change, and accept that those two things do not always sit in the same person. Working that out early, and preparing a second name, costs an hour and saves a campaign.
The part that actually decides it
Broadcast rewards a combination rather than any single strength. The expertise has to be real, the timing has to line up with a story already running, and the client has to understand how the medium works well enough to move at its speed. There’s something about the medium that just doesn’t let you have any weaknesses. Take any one of those away and the other two rarely carry it.
Broadcast placements can be far more gruelling, as it requires being on and ready (we won’t get tired of saying this) all the time. There’s the monitoring, the honest expectation setting, the willingness to drop a Tuesday afternoon. This is what puts someone on air!
So before any broadcast push, ask whether your spokesperson has the flexibility (and capability) to clear a morning at two hours’ notice, and whether anyone has told them yet that they might have to.
