As part of my work of the Hamilton House PR Agency, I try and keep in with the researchers at the BBC who are often charged with the need to find someone last minute to talk on anything educational.
It paid off this weekend when I was called and asked to do a piece about dyslexia today. What question did I want to put to the Secretary of State, Ed Balls on the new money that is being put into education to help work with young people who suffer from dyslexia? I told them, and they said fine, “you’re on”.
To be 100% accurate I didn’t quite put my point to Mr B, since the broadcast on Radio 5 Live was interrupted to cover some development in the election of a Speaker for the House of Commons (to think that a comment of mine should be interrupted by “events”!!!)
But I got on (I think just as the Sec was shuffling out of the studio), said my bit about the issue of dyslexia that really troubles me, and I suspect that one or two members of my family tuned in to listen even if the rest of the nation turned off.
The point about such contacts of course is that by always being avaialble for the BBC whenever they want it enhances the chances of new stories that come out of this office getting onto a BBC programme. It doesn’t guarantee it, of course, but it makes life easier. (I once did an interview for Radio 4 while in the queue for the checkout at Tesco – there is no end to my dedication).
If you are interested in Hamilton House representing your company in terms of PR you might care to take a peek at www.voom.org.uk – our PR site. We do have a facility through which you only pay for the coverage you get – that is, if we write a press release and it doesn’t get coverage, you don’t pay us anything. The alternative is that you can pay a monthly fee, which is the same each month, whether we get you on a dozen TV shows, or one tiny article in a specialist magazine.
Or, if you prefer, call me on 01536 399 013 and I’ll just go on and on about me and the Secretary of State and how I told him how to get his dyslexia policy right.
Oh yes, and its my birthday too.
Tony