EXPERT WOMEN

Broadcast Ready was thrilled to welcome a full house of attendees representing hundreds of companies and organisations in the UK. The audience included FTSE 100/250, NYSE listed, global PR agencies to SME’s and individual experts to an event that was the first of its kind for many to attend.

The VT (VT=video!) features some of the audience and speakers of Expert Women in their own fields of expertise including Mary Macleod Conservative MP, Jackie Long ITN Channel 4 News, Inga Thordar BBC TV News, psychologist Dr. Linda Papadopoulos and Lis Howell, co-founder of the Expert Women campaign and Director of Broadcasting at City University London.

There are ethical and measurable strategic business reasons why companies should chose and inspire more Expert Women to go on TV and radio. Just because at the moment, on average, 80% of the experts on the news are men and so this isn’t mirroring working society – but editors are extremely serious about changing this and have put new steps in place to do so. We advise companies to put forward both genders in their broadcast expert spokesperson mix – or start working up to that, as some aren’t giving their female expert talent a chance to go on air yet, or the women themselves haven’t put themselves forward.

Watch the co-founder of the Expert Women campaign, Lis Howell’s call to action to PR’s to include putting forward female experts for broadcast interviews. Journalists featured in the video, give a philosophical and sociological view point as to why it’s important to get more Expert Women on air – it also makes sense for businesses too.

What do the British public want to see and hear when it comes to the experts that go on the news, and how can experts go about getting on the news.

Panelists, Chaired by Kerry Hopkins: – Steve Anderson, Managing Director, NBC’s Peacock Productions, Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary, National Union Journalists (NUJ), Matt Barbet, News Anchor, ITN Channel 5 News, Naomi Kerbel, Business News Editor, Sky News, Natasha Shallice, Series Producer of ‘ITV’s The Agenda’ and Professor Lis Howell, Director of Broadcasting at City University London. 15th January 2015, NUJ sponsored Broadcast Ready event hosted by TNS in London, England.

TNS/Broadcast Ready poll gives experts on TV and radio news a boost 

By Kerry Hopkins

1 in 4 of experts on the news are women. The UK’s first ever of it’s kind TNS/Broadcast Ready poll of the British public, revealed on the 15th January 2015 shows that one in three TV News viewers believe there should be more female experts in broadcast media. The poll went onto look at male spokespeople too, and I’ll come onto that. A lot of organisations do not offer their corporate spokespeople up to give analysis and commentary on breaking news stories or planned diary stories – to start with, most firms do not have the right contacts and phone numbers.

I knew when I revealed the findings at TNS’ office to a panel of broadcast heavyweights, the NUJ and an audience of professionals, the results would be emotional for some and a marketing opportunity for others. TV and radio news audiences were found to disregard gender, level of attractiveness and ethnicity when judging an expert’s credibility but the majority of those surveyed thought both genders were equally represented on news outlets, an erroneous assumption.

To me, as Managing Director of Broadcast Ready, a proactive service that trains and then gets experts on air, there is a long held belief held amongst psychologists in particular that what people think they see isn’t always what is actually there…Only 25% of the experts on the news are female, yet 54% of the public thought both genders are equally represented. Broadcast Ready has had hundreds of news opportunities over the last year and 61% of the experts we’ve got on the news are women and 39% are men.

I have worked closely with Expert Women, established by City University/Broadcast magazine, a three year initiative to survey the gender balance of the news on our screens, has found that just one in four featured experts are female. The Expert Women campaign is trying to raise the number of expert women on the news to 30%.

Yet there’s certainly no shortage of expert women, ONS government figures from 2013 show that approximately 28% of Britain’s ‘highly skilled’ workers are male and 25% are female. Many in Britain’s workforce will have had a female boss at some time in their career and yet this gender balance in the workforce is rarely reflected on the news. Expert women and men – if you feel you have the potential to be good on TV or radio news, do go speak to your PR departments and the Board and ask them to invest in you by organising broadcast training for you, adding you to their corporate spokespeople list and then they need to find the right specialist firm to help get you on air. It’s one thing being a spokesperson, but journalists need to know about you and at the time it matters most to them.

The results from our survey also found that experts wishing to raise their profile would do well to appear on broadcast news programmes. Experts on TV are perceived by audiences as ‘highly credible’ or ‘the best in their field’ with many viewers searching the experts on internet search engines during or after transmission. Broadcasters can also take heart that the TNS/Broadcast Ready poll showed that experts who appeared on televised news were held in much higher regard than those quoted in newspapers. The TNS/Broadcast Ready poll reveals that when assessing an expert’s credibility viewers’ considered largely irrelevant include:

• – How good looking they are
• – Their gender
• – Their ethnic background

Factors viewers care most about:

• – The expert’s knowledge of the subject matter
• – How engaging they are when speaking on the news
• – Whether what they say is credible
• – Their impartiality

If you think you or your spokespeople have got what it takes to get on the news or get more broadcast interviews, Broadcast Ready’s services include broadcast news spokesperson training, verification as a credible broadcast news expert, entry onto the NUJ endorsed online video-only database and the Broadcast Ready team actually helping support the journalism industry by getting the experts onto the news to react to breaking news stories and planned diary stories. Panelists, chaired by Kerry Hopkins on the 15th January 2015 at TNS, were:- Steve Anderson, Managing Director, NBC’s Peacock Production, Natasha Shallice, Series Producer of ITV The Agenda, Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary, NUJ, Matt Barbet, News Anchor, Channel 5 News, Naomi Kerbel, Business News Editor, Sky News and Professor Lis Howell, Director of Broadcasting, City University London.