{"id":25064,"date":"2006-05-24T09:55:53","date_gmt":"2006-05-24T09:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=618"},"modified":"2025-06-12T16:05:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:05:02","slug":"tv-talk-show-guest-wannabes-make-these-critical-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/tv-radio\/tv-talk-show-guest-wannabes-make-these-critical-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"TV talk show guest wannabes make these critical mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here are the biggest mistakes people make when they pitch TV talk show producers. \u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They pitch\u00a0a producer whose name they\u00a0added to their Rolodex four years ago, but they haven&#8217;t contacted the producer since then.<\/li>\n<li>They contact\u00a0the wrong producer at the show and don&#8217;t know who&#8217;s the correct one for their topic.<\/li>\n<li>The lead the pitch with\u00a0their\u00a0book instead of with their\u00a0expertise.<\/li>\n<li>They mention only themselves and are\u00a0reluctant to pitch other guests to appear on the same show because they don&#8217;t want others to\u00a0hog the spotlight.<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0have no idea what kinds of segments a producer specializes in.<\/li>\n<li>They send their\u00a0entire media kit with all their\u00a0marketing materials to the producer of a show like &#8220;Oprah&#8221; thinking that if she has a good selection of things to read, she\u2019ll find what she needs and book them\u00a0for a segment. (There&#8217;s no way a producer would ever open a hefty folder.)<\/li>\n<li>They\u00a0pitch shows they&#8217;ve\u00a0never watched.<\/li>\n<li>They offer the\u00a0same angle to everyone they&#8217;re\u00a0pitching.<\/li>\n<li>They include their\u00a0resume with their\u00a0pitch, which makes it look like they&#8217;re\u00a0job-hunting.<\/li>\n<li>They send\u00a0blast-fax pitches to everyone because it&#8217;s cheaper than snail-mail, and the pitches won&#8217;t get caught in spam filters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you too make any of those mistakes, no wonder you aren&#8217;t getting interviews.<\/p>\n<p>You must be thoroughly familiar with each show. You must know the names of the producers and which segments they specialize in. You must send succinct, compelling pitches and deliver them in the format in which the producers prefer, along with the correct marketing materials. And you must make every single media outlet believe that your pitch was custom-made only for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I just got my hands on &#8220;Harrison&#8217;s Guide to the Top National TV Talk and Interview Shows,&#8221; and it&#8217;s chock full of contact names and pitching tips for 259 of the top shows. The user-friendly guide lets you search for information by topic, or by program in alphabetical order. It also lets you know which producer is the best overall contact and includes lots of specific information on which kinds of guests these producers are looking for.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Steve Harrison is raising the price after 5 p.m. tomorrow.\u00a0If you order it today,\u00a0you&#8217;ll also gain admission to a special training teleconference called &#8220;Secrets for Getting Booked as a Guest on Top National TV Shows&#8221; and featuring a former NBC producer.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing who to call and what to say is more than half the battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are the biggest mistakes people make when they pitch TV talk show producers. \u00a0 They pitch\u00a0a producer whose name they\u00a0added to their Rolodex four years ago, but they haven&#8217;t contacted the producer since then. They contact\u00a0the wrong producer at the show and don&#8217;t know who&#8217;s the correct one for their topic. The lead the\u2026&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/tv-radio\/tv-talk-show-guest-wannabes-make-these-critical-mistakes\/\" class=\"rmlink\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":609,"footnotes":""},"categories":[609],"tags":[620,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-25064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tv-radio","7":"tag-how-to-interview","8":"tag-media-relations","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41258,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25064\/revisions\/41258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}