By Bryan Farrish

        If you are an author, public speaker, or professional who has a strong viewpoint on a particular topic, then you no doubt have considered interviewing with your local newspaper, radio or TV outlet to get your viewpoint out and generate sales or sales leads for your book. And, while all the different media would certainly be welcome, you may not have the time or the energy required to do them all. Thus we'd like you to focus on just radio interviews. Here are the reasons you should consider pursuing radio only:

INSTANT FEEDBACK: Only the broadcast media can give you instant phone calls (to your own number) or instant traffic to your web site. This makes tracking much easier since you can tell immediately what show or station is pulling best for you. With print, you may end up with several pieces circulating at once, so finding out which one is working (and which one is wasting your time) can be difficult.

CAN BE DONE ON THE RUN: Since you probably are a person heavily involved in other areas besides media, stopping everything you are doing so you can go through a one- or two-hour TV or print interview can be difficult to say the least. Radio is the only medium that allows you instant feedback while you are on the run (although a cell is not good for interviews... land lines are best); no driving to a TV station, or meeting with a print reporter.

THE MOST OUTLETS: In any city or town, there are more radio stations than TV stations and newspapers combined. This becomes very important once you have gotten good at doing your interviews. You then want to make the best use of the approach you have developed. Also, once one of the media (say, radio) sees you are doing a good job interviewing, others in that same medium will want to follow suit. You'll want to stick with the venue that has the most outlets. Here are the rough numbers of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada:

2,400 Country (all styles)
2,070 Oldies (1920's to 1980's, all styles)
1,910 Religious (including Christian, Gospel, and Ministry)
2,000 News/Talk/Sports
1,709 Adult Contemporary (all styles)
830 Rock/Alternative
665 Variety
456 Top 40
300 Urban (all styles)
730 Non-English
228 Classical/Jazz
50 Kids
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13,348 Total Radio Shows

These numbers include all possible broadcast stations, whether the stations are commercial or non-commercial, large or small, AM or FM. They do not include any non-broadcast (i.e., cable or Internet) stations, because of the low listener ships of these types of stations.

SEVERAL CAN BE DONE IN A ROW: Since there are so many radio stations, you can make good use of your time by scheduling as many phone interviews in one day as possible. Since you are live-on-the-air, stations have a vested interest in not wasting your time or theirs; you'll be off talking to the next station before you know it.

GOOD PRACTICE FOR YOUR OWN SHOW: This is one of the best reasons to stick with radio for your interview medium. Many folks do their interviews with the long-term goal of starting their own radio program. This is very feasible in radio; your own TV show, however, is going to be quite a stretch, and your own magazine or newspaper isn't going to happen anytime soon. A weekly half-hour radio show, or even a 2-minute special, is easily done even by beginners, and learning to syndicate it is a logical next step.

Copyright 2006 Bryan Farrish

Bryan Farrish is the president of Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion located in Los Angeles, CA. He is hired to obtain radio interviews on stations in the U.S. and Canada. His work consists of his assistants making hundreds of phone calls every week to stations. He can be reached at 310-998-8305 or http://www.radio-media.com