My Jazzercise instructor has already warned us to be braced for packed classes this month.
That’s because this is the month when everybody tries to take off what they gained over the holidays. TV stations everywhere want to know about these stories.
Here’s an almost guaranteed way to get your company on the local TV news. The tip comes from my friend Shawne Duperon, a TV news reporter in Michigan, who writes an excellent ezine that you can subscribe to.
“Create a game where your employees will lose 100 pounds in the month of January. Media will LOVE that story,” Shawne says.
Here’s my 2 cents worth: Piggyback off NBC’s reality show “Biggest Loser” and award a prize to the employee who loses the most and keeps it off for 6 months. And be sure to pitch the story to your NBC stations or the local NBC affiliates. I’ll bet you show up on the nightly news twice—once when you announce the contest and again when you announce the winner.
Other fitness-related ideas from Shawne: Any new health or fitness craze, stories on aging, fad d*iets, fast food, plastic surgery, and cooking healthy for your family, with an invitation for the TV cameras to come into your kitchen.
Don’t forget healthy eating in company and school cafeterias.
Shawne was my guest during a teleseminar called “116 WOW! Story Ideas from January through June.”
Don’t assume that stories that work well in newspaper translate well on TV, and vice versa.
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