Broadcasting Doctors - Sponsoring health awareness campaigns, sourcing medical spokespeople

COST EFFECTIVE HEALTH PUBLIC RELATIONS

Our members - over 600 broadcasting doctors - can provide the independent and authoritative medical comment needed to support health promotion campaigns.

There are various ways in which this can be achieved:

Sponsored Emailed News for Local Radio

Latest News on this site is updated weekly and our Members alerted by email at the same time. By sponsoring an update for just £50.00, agencies can communicate directly with ABD members and receive confirmation of the local radio broadcasts that result. If required, our local radio contacts can also be emailed.

Sponsored Snail Mail

If sponsors require their own press packs to be circulated, we will mail all, or selected ABD members. The fee is £1.25 per doctor targeted, plus the cost of stationery, printing, postage, etc. We can usually accurately predict the amount of radio coverage likely to be achieved and report back to the sponsor with full details.

We have over 685 ABD Members at present, all of them practising GPs, hospital doctors or consultants who will broadcast on topics of importance to them. If appropriate, we can target Members in particular specialities, or from specific areas of the country. All ABD Members appreciate receiving briefings before medical news hits the headlines so that they can be prepared for comment.

Our Service to Sponsors

Both emails and snail mails can be supported by broadcast media awareness initiatives linked to a sponsor's particular health topic. Broadcasters are introduced to those of our Members who are most appropriate and willing to be interviewed about that topic. We will set up live broadcasts by this means, using the sponsor's own spokespeople too, if required, reporting details of transmission times and places to the sponsor before the broadcasts take place.

Our initiatives are successful because we work with the broadcasting station staffs and discuss with them what they require and how they would like to handle the subject.

For the BBC, this could be for instance:

1: A straight one-to-one interview with a fully briefed, local ABD Member, live in studio, or from the doctor's surgery. An alternative could be the sponsor's own spokesperson from a remote ISDN studio, or on the telephone. Duration approximately 5 -10 minutes.

2: A studio interview with an ABD Member, followed by an on-air 'phone-in. Duration approximately 30 minutes.

3: A studio discussion with a local doctor, a patient or carer, and with the sponsor's spokesperson in a remote studio. Duration approximately 15 - 20 minutes.

4: Independent Radio will usually require a pre-recorded, two minute telephone interview, preferable with a local doctor, and sometimes with the sponsor's spokesperson. This will normally be played throughout the day on hourly news bulletins.

All these options are especially attractive to local radio stations because we provide them with local clinicians to talk about national issues. This is always preferred to an interview from a remote ISDN studio with someone who has no local connection - although we can provide this facility if necessary.

Sponsors are kept informed throughout with names of interviewees and the date, time and place of broadcasts, radio station contacts, etc.

Please click here to email for information about sponsorship.

ABD THE ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING DOCTORS