A Video News Release is a video version of the humble press release designed for TV News and Internet News broadcast.

A Video News Release is a package of interviews and overlay relating to a specific story that is supplied free of charge to TV and Internet newsrooms by a company or PR agency.

It is just like sending out a Press Release or a Radio News Release except that you are using vision to assist a TV newsroom formulate a story.

Ask any commercial TV newsroom about whether they use Video News Releases and most will say they don’t, but the honest fact is they do quite regularly. The reason they say they don’t is that they want to be viewed as independent and for the large part they are.

But well targeted Video News Releases still hold a firm place in the broadcast of TV news. Unlike radio newsrooms that are constantly under budgetary restraints and cutbacks which result in shrinking newsrooms and more reliance on the provision of Radio News Releases, TV newsrooms are in many ways the opposite. A TV newsroom is a ratings driver that sets the viewing trend for the remainder of the peak viewing period that evening. If you win the news ratings, there is a fair chance you will hold that audience and win the overall night. Therefore, cost is not as big a hurdle for TV newsrooms in the majority of cases (within reason of course). They are well staffed and well resourced which means if you are going to provide a Video News Release it has to be compelling. The Video News Release needs to contain material that the newsrooms were unable to cover themselves.

For example, a Video News Release may provide vision of a medical procedure that for obvious reasons was inaccessible to regular news crew coverage. Or the Video News Release may contain an interview with a person that was unavailable to a mass media event.

The Video News Release may also contain exceptional vision that traditional news crews were unable to cover. For example, the World Wildlife Fund may provide vision of ice falls in Antarctica to illustrate Global Warming. This vision would be of interest to the TV networks as they obviously would not fund a trip to Antarctica. If the network did decide to run the footage, they would credit the vision as being supplied by WWF.

Another great example of this is big wave surfing vision supplied by surf wear companies Rip Curl, Quiksilver and Billabong. They shoot the vision in the middle of the southern ocean and then make it available for all networks to access.

In fact, sport is the perfect example of how Video News Releases can be used to great effect. As per the example above, the surf wear companies have their own media units generating compelling visual content not just for their own sites, but also TV and internet news. The Australian Rugby Union is another organization that has a full-time media unit dedicated to generating content and providing it to the major networks. This makes enormous sense when you consider the exposure generated for their sport and sponsors who are emblazoned across their playing and training jerseys. In most cases, the vision is supplied of the team training in a regional area of Australia, or overseas during a tour where the cost involved for a network to cover this would be prohibitive. In these cases the networks are more than happy to take and run the vision as it adds to their overall product.

These are all examples of the effective use of a Video New Release. It is not about providing something that the news organizations would cover anyway if they deemed it a suitable story, it is about providing material not available to TV news networks, and giving them newsworthy content that not only lifts your exposure but also boosts their broadcast.

The Media Game has more than 20 years of commercial broadcast TV experience and every member of our Video News Release unit have worked extensively in Metro Commercial TV newsrooms.

We work with you to produce an outstanding Video News Release that delivers what the networks require in terms of quality and content to give your release the greatest possible chance of success.

For more information on Video News Releases view our story on How To Get Your Story On TV.

> How To Get Your Story On TV