Tour Prompts Co. To Buy Insurance Executives from West Glen Communications were holding their breath two weeks ago: If the verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial had been reached during a Jan. 29 satellite media tour (SMT) scheduled with New York-based Chisolm-Mingo Public Relations, for Seagram's Gin, the production company could potentially have kissed a good chunk of its pre-scheduled media interviews -- in 20 television markets -- goodbye.
As we now know, the Santa Monica, Calif., jury did not return the "O.J. is liable!" verdict until Feb. 4 -- well after the SMT. But West Glen executives didn't take any chances. So on Jan. 28, it had the SMT "O.J. insured," so to speak. Thus, they were covered in the event stations and reporters had to break their engagement. West Glen would not reveal the name of the insurance company.
Seagram spent about $16,000 on the campaign. In addition, Seagram, headquartered in New York, agreed to pay about $3,200, or 20 percent of the total cost of the campaign, to West Glen for the insurance. The verdict wasn't announced, and the tour continued, but at least the "what happens if..." thought was put to rest.
West Glen now hopes to offer insurance, at affiliate offices in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, as an extra for all future SMTs, just to be safe.
"It certainly makes a lot of sense. Your worst nightmare is having breaking news like the Oklahoma City bombing, where all the news stations will be somewhere else. It's smart to insure against a possible disaster," said John Summerlin, senior vice president in charge of production.
This idea didn't come out of fear of disaster, but from experience with it. It struck West Glen, when it had arranged for two video news releases for two separate clients to be fed live, via satellite on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, leaving no news stations available to pick up the VNR. West Glen had to re-arrange the satellite feeds, and of course, foot the bill.
News Broadcast Network, New York, is the second largest producer of SMTs and VNRs, and has been providing them for clients for the past five years. "Luckily we have had no major catastrophes, but I could see how it could happen," said Michael Hill, president. "You always think about a disaster happening, so if I knew that insurance was available, I would certainly consider getting it."
SMTs, versus VNRs, are more difficult to reschedule, and cost a lot more, said Hill. VNR distribution usually costs between $4,000 and $6,000, while SMT costs range from $10,000 to $35,000, depending on how remote the location of the shoot is.
Another School of Thought
There's no arguing that a major news crisis will ruin an SMT, but, realistically, how often does it happen? Sally Jewett, president of On the Scene Productions, Los Angeles, said, "We laughed when we heard about it (offering insurance). It's a publicity thing, because the chances of breaking news happening, that literally stops the tour, is so rare."
At On the Scene there's a better chance of a spokesperson getting sick and backing out than having a major news story destroy a tour. Jewett said she recalls one time in her 11 years in the SMT business, when Walt Disney [DIS] was using Bette Midler as a spokesperson to promote its new movie, "Outrageous Fortune." Minutes into the tour, the Challenger spaceship exploded, and the tour was cancelled because Midler couldn't continue. Some stations were even still willing to continue the tour.
"Our responsibility in terms of consulting is to be very mindful of news out there and just hope that if a story breaks, we'll only lose a handful of stations," added Jewett.
And Jewett said that if breaking news stopped a tour, On the Scene would "find a way to recover as much as we could of the money spent by the client and return it to them. Or we'd send bits and pieces of the tour to news stations featuring other station interviews, maybe schedule and tape a phone interview with them and send it to them, if they couldn't reschedule."
Since On the Scene tries to recover most of the money spent by the client in a no-fault cancellation, "we don't take much of a loss, but we don't feel comfortable making a profit on it, either," said Jewett. (West Glen Communications, 212/921-2800; News Broadcast Network, 212/889-0888; On the Scene Productions, 213/930-1030)