Briefing Senior Staff

Last week I got to sit in on the weekly executive meeting with the General Manager and each department director. I was in the meeting to brief staff on the upcoming TV Works events I’m planning. This is only the third year we’ve run this event and it requires help and support from everyone on station.

I put together a powerpoint presentation that firstly explained what the event was about, our goals and objectives, last years success and the process involved. It took me ages to put it together but it also helped clear things up in my own mind and highlighted some things I’d forgotten about.

I think the presentation went really well. My main aim was to get support from the directors as I’d be needing help from their staff. Following the presentation they started asking questions and suggesting ways they could help which was really good! I then set up individual meetings with each department director to go through exactly what we’d need help with.

I’ve pretty pleased with how the event planning process is going so far. I’ve been lucky in that this is the third year Channel Nine has held the event so I have lots of paperwork and external contacts to help me. My next steps are to finalise all hospitality/venue bookings and start working with production on the presentation reel.

Although our reports are due next week, I’ll be continuing with this internship until the event in early August.

On Station Seminars

In August Channel Nine is holding educational seminars called ‘TV Works’. They’re information sessions for prospective customers who will be offered ‘one off’ deals if they attend. Last year the seminars made a huge amount of incremental revenue for the station and we’re hoping for the same result this year.

Although this is primarily a sales initiative, there’s a lot of coordination and PR efforts that go into the planning and implementation of the day. In previous years the station has hired an events planning company to do all the legs work however this year they’ve asked me to project manage the event.

Last year I helped out during the seminars but I wasn’t involved in the planning process. Unfortunately the person who did it last year is no longer with the company so it’s taken me a while to get my head around how much work is involved! The first thing I did was go through last years folder and create a list of things that needed to be done and by what date. I had to make a lot of phone calls and check with people in the PR office to see what went on last year. Our Adelaide offices run the same seminars so I’ve been in contact with them as well. Once I had a list of jobs I costed each aspect of the event to ensure we fit within the budget. The company has a strict cost recovery model so I had to speak with the sales staff to ensure the expect number of packages sold was realistic.

The Seminars require a huge effort from everyone on station. We need help from production to create an impressive show reel, engineering for audio and visual help, News to coordinate talent and use them wherever possible, admin/security to help with letting people in and out etc and sales who will be hosting the clients. My next step is to hold a meeting with the heads of department to get them excited and let them know what we’ll be doing differently this year. I’ll briefly mention the jobs/help required but go into more detail in individual meetings.

Lots to do on top of my usual workload but I’m really excited to be in charge of such an amazing event!

Distribution Lists

I’ve finished over 2 weeks of my work experience at Channel Nine. My first week was really focused on event planning as I was organising an event for our Nine Lives club. Last week was more about doing odd jobs here and there and helping out the public relations team as much as possible. One of the jobs I was helping on was the Media Release distribution lists. Channel Nine media releases serve two separate purposes. They’re intended to generate awareness about new shows, upcoming promotions, ratings wins etc amongst the general Perth community but they’re also targeted at our clients - Media Buying agencies. This means we have two separate distribution lists to arrange. The first list is for the media outlets in Perth and the second is for media agencies. It’s important these are kept separate because not all releases are relevant to everyone and we don’t want to bombard people with information they aren’t interested in. For example High Five coming to Perth might be something The West Australian use however a media agency who buys pronominally Ppl25-54 doesn’t have time to sift through information on children’s programming. This week I sorted through the Media Buyers list and updated who I thought should and shouldn’t be included. I added any new assistants and took off senior executives who no longer work in a buying capacity. I also was given the job of deciding which media releases should and shouldn’t be sent out. Although majority of our releases are written locally, we also get a huge amount from the Eastern States offices. Most of this information related to 5 cap city data which is generally irrelevant to our smaller Perth based clients. I decided rather than forwarding this information on (and irritating clients with elevated 5 cap city figures) I’d work with our ratings analysis in Sydney and have the data localised to Perth only. Although it brought the figures down, we were still able to find ‘good news’ stories and look more credible in the eyes of our media agencies.

Day on a Boat

I've opted to do my work experience at Channel Nine where I’ve been employed for the past 4 years in the advertising department. Aside from the convenience, I chose 9 because I’m passionate about the brand and have aspirations to work in the Melbourne office. It’s also a very exciting time for free to air television as a whole with the changing media landscape and introduction of digital TV.

On top of my usual workload, last week I was asked to project manage an event for our ‘Nine Lives’ clients to be held on Friday 25^th March. The event was the first for 2011 so had to be glamour!

It was a boat trip to Rottnest followed by cocktails at the Old Swan brewery. We had 40 guests and 8 staff members to cater for. Invitations and RSVPs had been sorted earlier so my job was to focus on the day itself. I firstly sent out reminder emails to all our guests and follow up phone calls to make sure we didn’t have any last minute cancellations or name changes. Everything was fine although I got lots of questions about what to wear and where to park. This info was on all communications but people must have still been confused. For the next event I’m going to attach a map showing exactly where to park.

We hired a catering company called comestibles who were amazing. They sent out suggested menus and from that I chose food for the day. I then went out to visit them where I was able to sample to food and make sure we’d ordered the right quantities of everything.

Back in the office I arranged with our graphics department to design name tags for the day. Once the design was done, one of our assistants typed up the names and printed the tags out. I didn’t realise we’d run out of lanyards and plastic slips so I had to drive down to office works and grab some more (hopefully I’ll be able to expense these later..). The name tags were really important because it was the first event and many clients didn’t know each other.

The day it’s self was a great success. Everyone met at the Old Swan Brewery for a quick hello and drink. We then ushered the clients onto the boat where everyone had champagne and our Sales Director Reece Hogan welcomed the guests individually. Comestibles were great on the day serving food and drinks and ensuring everyone was ok. It allowed us to spend time mingling and entertaining clients.

We only had a couple of small hiccups throughout the day that we hadn’t planned for. The first was that one client was sea sick on the way over. She had come by herself and didn’t know anyone so was a little embarrassed. One of our staff members took her inside the cabin and sat with her for most of the day. Although this was a bit of a burden, the client was greatly appreciative and (we hope) will still think fondly of Channel Nine. The other issue was that someone fell over on the dance floor and cut their leg. Again a staff member quickly and discreetly took them inside the cabin and grabbed the first aid kit.

All in all the day worked out perfectly and we had lots of positive feedback. The only other thing left to do is collate the photos and send out a follow up email. Any positive response I get back I’ll keep on file for future newsletters. I’ll post some photos of the day on my next blog!