Public Service Announcements at WREK

Table of Contents

• Submitting a PSA
• How PSAs are Selected for Broadcast
• Writing a Good PSA
• Contacting the PSA Director
• Q & A

Submitting a PSA

By mail:

PSA Director WREK 91.1 FM
Georgia Tech Student Radio
350 Ferst Drive NW, Suite 2224
Atlanta, GA 30332-0630

By e-mail:

psa@wrek.org

By Fax:

404 894 6872

You should submit a PSA and not a press release; the PSA director rarely rewrites press releases as PSAs.

How PSAs are Selected for Broadcast

PSAs are selected for broadcast in two steps. The PSA Director makes the selection in the first step and the on-air staff makes the selection in the second step.

In the first step, the PSA Director selects the PSAs that are kept for eventual broadcast; the remaining PSAs are thrown away. PSAs kept for broadcast are made available to the on-air staff.

The PSA director uses no specific content criteria for selecting or rejecting PSAs. In general, however, PSAs closer to home (for example, related to Georgia Tech or Atlanta) are favored over PSAs further from home (for example, related to Georgia or nationally). Also, PSAs related to non-profit organizations (for example, Georgia Tech or the MS Society) are favored over PSAs related to profit-making organizations (for example, the Ford Motor Company or The American Institute of Brick Manufacturers). When a PSA is rejected, it is almost always for mechanical reasions: either the PSA was poorly written, or it was received too late.

In the second step, the on-air staff selects the PSAs read over the air. Nominally, one PSA is read every hour, usually at 45 minutes after the hour, between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. On-air staff may select any PSA available to them for broadcast, but they are encouraged to make sure that all PSAs get more or less the same amount of air time.

Writing a Good PSA

Keep it short.

PSAs that are to be read live should be no more than 30 seconds long, around 60 to 80 words. Long PSAs are less likely to be selected by on-air staff than are short PSAs. Recorded PSAs can be up to 1 minute 30 seconds long, but should really be no longer than a minute.

Include contact information.

PSAs should include a description of how listeners can get further information. This may be a phone number, an address (street or e-mail), a Web site, and so on. A PSA with no contact information is less likely to make it past the PSA director than a PSA with contact information.

Provide pronunciation for difficult words.

None of the on-air staff likes getting phone calls about how they mispronounced "Goethe" or "Degas". You should be familiar with the words in your field that are most often mangled; include pronunciations for those words.

Do not include calls to action.

WREK is a non-commercial radio station, and cannot directly command, urge, or suggest that our listeners do something. PSAs that contain calls to action - even something as innocuous as "Call 404 555 1212 for more information" - are less likely to make it past the PSA director than PSAs that just present the facts, as in "More information is available at 404 555 1212".

Do not mention price or cost.

WREK is a non-commercial radio station, and cannot broadcast anything specifically mentioning price - as in "Tickets are available for $10.00" - or cost - as in "Students get half off on Thursdays". Note that the absence of cost - as in "Admission is free" - is a cost and should not be mentioned in a PSA. PSAs that specifically mention prices or costs are less likely to make it past the PSA director than are PSAs that have no mention of prices or costs.

Some example PSAs may help make these rules clear.

Contacting the PSA Director

You can contact the PSA Director at any of the addresses given above; you are strongly encouraged to use e-mail when contacting the PSA Director.

Q & A

Does it cost anything to submit a PSA?

There is no charge for accepting or broadcasting PSAs.

How can I tell if my PSA was selected?

Except for PSAs submitted by e-mail, the receipt and selection of PSAs are not acknowledged by the PSA director, regardless of the material included with the PSA (and for e-mail, only receipt is acknowledged, not selection). Contact the PSA director if you want to know the status of your PSA.

When can I hear my PSA?

Individual PSAs are not scheduled for broadcast. All PSAs selected by the PSA director are made available to on-air staff, each of whom selects the PSAs they read over the air.