Keeping Media "On Track" with Audio News Releases

Old-timey radioKate Corcoran, an account executive at the New York-based PR firm Articulate Communications, told PR Week that one of the benefits of audio news releases that run to a 60-second script is control. "This allows the message to be delivered in the exact way the company chooses," she said. The alternative is a radio media tour (RMT), where a corporate spokesperson does a series of back-to-back interviews. "With RMTs, you take a bit more of a gamble. Naturally, some interviews will go very well, and the client's message will be loud and clear, but with other interviews, the message may be a bit more muffled," Corcoran said. (ANRs are the radio equivalent of video news releases.) In a box summarising the benefits of ANRs, PR Week noted that one of the downsides of radio media tours is that "reporters can get off track or guide the interview in other directions."