I Am Not Appearing On Sky News At 7pm Tomorrow
In early January Sky News asked if they could interview me for an evening show about the latest Internet news. The show is going out tomorrow night at 7pm.
Unfortunately I won’t be on it because the person who arranged the interview didn’t notice the word “Leeds” in my email signature or company address and assumed I must live in London (doesn’t everybody?). The end result is that today when they rang to arrange everything and found out I didn’t live in London they told me that they didn’t want me on the show anymore.
If any Londoners would like to appear on Sky News tomorrow there is a slot available. I won’t be watching.
Now I wish I hadn’t told everybody to watch the show.
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Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 19 comments below, or add your own!
Did they provide any justification for this decision?
Your post is incredibly restrained considering this is fairly disgusting.
WTF?! What on earth does it matter whether you’re in London or not? THIS IS THE INTERNET, it doesn’t matter where you’re from.
Pretty random – guess its ab out getting you into the studio…. Although I’m surprised they didnt plan it better and enquire about this. Now we’ll be stuck with @girlonetrack talking about sex seo….. dear god.
@ Tom: Television tends to be recorded in a studio, which in Skys case is in london, so infact it does matter where you are from. Very ignorant of Sky to assume that tho!
That is pretty awful – their loss Patrick.
That’s a shame that such a simple detail was overlooked.
It only matters if you are unable, or unwilling to travel.
Well they didn’t ask if I was willing to pay my own way. It’s £240 to get to London on the train so not cheap.
@Martaay: It can be a live interview. I am sure Sky would have affiliates all across the globe. We see that stuff when things like Davos happen..
Sorry to hear about that Patrick.
Has anyone ever been to Sky’s Studios? It’s a push to describe them as being in ‘London’ anyway. http://tinyurl.com/dkm4xp
£240 for a train down is pretty darn disgusting in itself.
And you don’t think it was worth £240 to be able to use “I was on a Sky News show about SEO” as a selling point?
The show wasn’t about SEO.
I have had the same issue with BBC for radio broadcasts and sometimes they ring me on the day and ask me to go in.
They can be pretty arrogant at times.
£240 on the train to London, is that Business Class or what because I live right up north and I didn’t pay over £100!
Come join us peasants Patrick, just mind the sick on the seats
Luke that’s standard class day return York to London.
It pretty disgusting on all counts, the assumption you’re in London (which I’ve had from some PR agencies before), the price of train tickets and the general treatment from what I thought to be a respected news channel like Sky News – their lack of understanding that location is not key to Internet (relevance and success) is somewhat disturbing.
I used to be a panellist on Sky’s Chips With Everything show. They never used to pay train fares then either. They would pay £15 a show and usually film 8 shows in a day for £120. That money just about paid my train fare and some snacks for the ride home. Cheapskates!
Sorry I missed this (as I’d have jumped at the chance, shameless show-pony that I am) and also sorry they didn’t think to ask you were you were based.
Then again, it doesn’t entirely surprise me: http://www.altogetherdigital.com/20071121/blog-about-the-news-to-get-in-the-news/