No publicity is good publicity

Every major TV network in the world that we work with regularly sends out publicity material which we gladly publish for them because, well, we love talking about TV.  When the latest reality TV show hits the airwaves, our inbox gets flooded with bios and photos of the contestants from publicists desperate to get their content talked about and promoted for, in the most part, free.

Contrast this with a recent, and yet not too unfamiliar, email exchange with TVNZ.

Throng:

Hi [publicist],

Is it possible for us to receive the profile images of the top 25 contestants for use on our website?

Thanks,

[throng]

TVNZ:

Hi [throng]

Thanks for your email requesting profile pictures of the Top 25 MasterChef contestants.

At TVNZ we’re very cautious about where our images go, and don’t send them out indiscriminately.

Could you please tell me what you need the pictures for and how they will be used?

Many thanks

[publicist]

Throng:

Hi [publicist],

Thanks for getting back to me. The images would simply be used for MasterChef contestant bio pages that we have created on Throng.co.nz and also further down the line to highlight who has been eliminated after each episode.

Thanks,

[throng]

TVNZ:

Hi [throng]

We’re currently being very selective with the provision of our MasterChef contestant images, so were are not sending any additional ones out at this stage.

Regards

[publicist]

Why TVNZ continue to treat us like enemies is beyond me.  Are they scared we’re going to use the images maliciously?  The bio pages we’ve created for the contestants are there to provide a space for promoting them beyond the show.  We even link to the Facebook pages the contestants have set up, not to mention back to the TVNZ site where the receipes are.

As you can see, the images are now circulating online anyway, as they inevitably would.