BROADCAST MEDIA TRAINING

A hugely practical and highly effective workshop where you'll learn how to: stay in control of media interviews; discover techniques to focus on your key messages instead of worrying too much about the questions you're asked; and find ways to deliver those messages in a clear, concise and compelling manner. All without sounding like a slippery politician!

Book a place on a public course

Date	Price
22/05/2024	From £199/person
Duration/Times: 3 hours / 10:00 to 13:00

Organise an in-house private course

This is the way most organisations choose to work with us. You get to choose the workshop, nominate who you want to sit the session, fix a time and date that suits everyone and decide whether you want online or in-person delivery. We do the rest – even down to tweaking the training to match your specific needs. All we need is a bit of information about you so click the organise button to get the ball rolling.

Price

From £899 per session

One-to-one training

Just you and the trainer’s undivided attention. Some people prefer to sit our courses on their own. Click the button to tell us a bit about yourself and suggest a date.

Price

From £499 per session

Coaching and mentoring

Maybe you don’t want or need a full training course but would like a little help. Or maybe you’d like a lot of help. Either way coaching and mentoring could be the answer. Tell us more and we’ll be in touch.

Price

£199 for first hour, £149/hr thereafter

Self-guided courses

We've partnered with Thinkific to host our self-guided online courses. With prices starting at under £50 we think they're great value for money. They're presented by the same knowledgeable, experienced and enthusiastic trainers behind our face-to-face and live online sessions - with the added advantage that you can sit the modules at your own pace and in your own time. You can even skip to those sections that most suit your training needs. And once you've sat the course if you feel you need further help we now offer one-to-one coaching and mentoring to help you improve your knowledge and skills still further.

Price

From £49.99

Our media interview training is based on a unique system designed and developed by ACM over the past 28 years and rated as highly effective by more than 12,500 individuals and 2,500 organisations. We call it the 3P® approach - a hugely practical yet remarkably straightforward way of equipping interviewees with the skills they need to stay in control of the media – even under hostile questioning. The three initials of the title stand for the planning that should be done before an interview, the process of managing an interview to avoid being dictated to by the interviewer and the promotion of key messages during an interview.

🦉Read our trainer's latest posts on media relations.

AIMED AT
Anyone who wants to use the media - proactively or reactively - to communicate in both good and bad news situations.

CONTENT

Introduction

A short, introductory discussion in which the session is outlined, participants are introduced, learning objectives are shared and the methodology agreed.

Part 1: Process

The first section explores the process of being interviewed – whether on radio, television in print or for the web - so that interviewees understand how they can switch from being led by the questions (something that’s beyond their control) to response-led (something very much within their control). It’s experiential so participants acquire the skills needed to switch from reactive to proactive through a series of realistic one-to-one interviews on subjects drawn from their own general or specific field of experience. These interviews (and those which follow) are recorded either as TV or radio interviews for later evaluation and feedback (both on the day and post-course).

Specific points covered include:

Knowledge is power – how what you know already puts you in a powerful position.
Breaking the mould – shifting the interview template from Q & A (question and answer – often problematic) to Q & R (question and response) to make the most of your knowledge “power.”
How focussing on key messages helps measure the value of the question-side of the interview equation.
How categorising the questions asked as helpful, unhelpful and neutral will suggest the correct response.
Keeping the audience on side – how to deal with questions you can’t or don’t want to answer without appearing unhelpful or evasive.
Moving on – how to steer an interview in your direction and say what you want when the questions don’t fit.
“But” and “and” – how two little words are the most powerful weapons in the interviewees’ armoury.
Anger management – why coolness under fire is important and how to maintain it even under hostile or adversarial interrogation.

Part 2: Planning

This section builds on the first and looks at how planning can help make the whole experience much more productive, less nerve-wracking and reduce the potential for unhelpful coverage. Participants get to try out a number of simple but effective planning tools and techniques including our hugely helpful planning matrix adopted by hundreds of organisations around the world including Amenesty International and the University of Birmingham. As before, it’s an experiential session where participants acquire and practice the skills needed to plan for and conduct realistic one-to-one interviews.

Specific points covered include:

Using a planning matrix for clarity and brevity.
Why structured planning leads to structured interviews.
Why key messages alone are rarely enough.
Planning to win over hearts and minds.
Questions – how a simple formula can help you know in advance ALL the questions you’re ever likely to be asked.
Finding the right words by visualising what you're trying to say.

Part 3: Promotion

This session explores the techniques interviewees need to deploy to make their key messages stand out so that they are remembered by a live audience or passed on via the editing process to readers, viewers, listeners and Internet users in pre-recorded interviews. The techniques are analogous to highlighting the important bits of a written document by CAPITALISATION or by using bold font. Again the newly acquired skills are put to the test in simulated interviews.

Specific points covered include:

Repetition, repetition, repetition – how saying something lots of times can help it stick.
Boring, boring, boring – but not if you say it exactly the same way every time or overdo it.
Tagging – how you can attach verbal labels to your key messages so that they stand out.
Hooks – catching the audience using facts and figures that are truly shocking, plain interesting or downright quirky.
Generation Game – why conjuring up an image of Bruce Forsyth’s Seventies game show maybe no bad thing.
Conveyor belts, cuddly toys and catchphrases – how Brucie can help you (really!) unlock the power of the human memory, unleash the audience’s love of a good story and uncover the raw strength of language.
Soundbites – how providing vivid, quotable quotes which contain all your key messages but take just 30” to deliver can help reduce the need for editing and, therefore, potential distortion.
Negotiation – how you can bargain with a journalist for better coverage from a position of moral strength.
Vocal chords – how the human voice can be used as a musical instrument to drive home a point.

As with all our courses additional learning material is available online and all participants can view and download their interviews after the event.

FACILITATOR

Your facilitator will be the former BBC broadcaster, Richard Uridge. He's been leading our media and communication workshops for the past 28 years and has been a journalist for 40. Which means he's highly experienced (as well as ancient) both as a trainer and as a broadcaster - a combination of huge value to his trainees.

FEEDBACK

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IN HOUSE

This workshop is available for in-house delivery which is cost effective if you've got more than a few people who need training with the added advantage that course content can be tailored to your specific organisational needs. Contact the trainer to discuss your requirements.

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