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You’ve spent weeks preparing for a radio media tour. The spokesperson has been media trained, a media alert distributed, suggested questions have been edited and provided to the hosts, and a schedule of 10 to 20 interviews is in place. Now it’s time for the first interview of the day. The moderator from the vendor you’ve hired introduces your spokesperson to the host, but when they say “hello,” the host on the other end wants to know why the audio quality is so bad. “Are you on a conference line?” they ask. It doesn’t matter how good your story is or how well prepared your spokesperson is if the host can’t use the audio.
There are many reasons to hire a vendor that will connect your spokesperson to radio stations from a broadcast studio as opposed to using a teleconference line.
Audio Quality
Phone companies have strayed a long way from landline phones with copper wiring that provided clear, reliable connections. Most landline phone lines these days are run on a VoIP system, meaning they use a broadband internet connection rather than analog phone lines. Piling more people onto a conference line taxes the internet connection further, which can lead to audio quality issues.
A broadcast studio will be able to provide a listen-in line for participants while isolating the guest on their own line providing a cleaner sound for the station on the other end.
Control
Depending on the conference line system participants will be expected to mute themselves. This can be problematic if someone forgets to do so or accidentally unmutes themselves. Conference services also typically alert everyone when a new participant joins the line making it difficult for people to jump on and off the call without disrupting the interview that’s going on.
When using a broadcast studio the engineer is in control of muting and unmuting participants, preventing any outside audio from bleeding into the interview.
Expertise
A moderator is needed to ensure the radio media tour stays on track, but if you’re using a conference service, they won’t be able to help with any technical issues.
A broadcast engineer can troubleshoot issues like echo on the line or unbalanced audio levels between the guest and host. A broadcast engineer can also help the host or producer at the station work through any issues they may have on their end. In the rare case the station can’t solve the problem, an engineer can record the interview, edit it quickly, and provide the station with the recorded audio file, saving an interview that would have been lost otherwise.
A lot of time and effort goes into preparing and executing a radio media tour. Make sure to put your team in a position to succeed in every phase by hiring a radio media tour vendor with a professional broadcast studio.
Do you have radio media tour questions? MediaTracks is here to answer them whether technical or otherwise.
Call us at 847-299-9500 or send an email to [email protected]