selling footage to the media?

robertwerden

robertwerden

Well-known member
When you just happen to be at the right place at the right time and catch something news worthy, how do you get it to the right people and make money from it.
s there a website or phone list compiled of the buyers to contact?
 
I asked the same question 6 months ago on another forum. I was told that you should pitch it to your local tv stations. If it is what they are looking for you could make $3-500 for a few clips. If it is truly amazing then you could sell for $1,000+ to the big networks. That is what I heard anyways.
 
Selling news video is a time sensitive issue. It's only got value for a certain amount of time and then it's not of interest. No interest, no money.

It also depends on if anyone else also got the images you did and how yours compare to theirs.

Much also depends on where you live. Where you are shooting the video and what media outlets are near you. If you are in a smaller town television market wise the amount of money you might make will be much less than if you are in a larger market where there is more competition as well as potential clients to sell your material to.

Things to keep in mind.

You either sell it to one outlet as an exclusive or you sell it to several outlets in the same market at a lesser price to each, but with your eye on the total amount available after all the sales of the same material.

Most stringers will not sell video as an exclusive simply because it is rare they actually get anything of sufficient interest to justify a station paying for said exclusive. Things like fires, plane crash aftermath, car accidents, are usually sold to each outlet for US$75 to US$100 a dub. Three or four places buy it and your take ends up in the four hundred dollar range.

If you truly get an exclusive...Brittney cutting all her hair off, Nancy Kerrigan getting her legs banged up in an attack, an airliner crashing into the ground...all with sound as well as pictures...you can make much more.

The key is for you to protect your rights to the images after the sale. You don't want the local station paying you a small amount for the video, then have them turn around and hand it off to CNN which will feed it nationwide...leaving you with chump change.

Protecting yourself from this means having some paperwork that you not only get them to sign when they buy the video...but YOU having the resources to go after them legally if they break the agreement. Just because you have documentation saying you have rights, doesn't mean your rights are automatically protected. You need to have a lawyer available to follow through if what you got is worth much more and your rights are violated. Again, getting a lawyer to be available to do this kind of footwork is going to depend on what THEY will get out of helping you chase down your rightful profits.

In the end...the best thing to do is get as much money up front as possible. Sometimes that means saying "no" and then living with the result of not making a dime.

The guy who shot the first plane going into the WTC on 9/11 had the shot for days before revealing to the world he had it and it was available. This is a rare situation. Thus the need for you to be realistic about what you have to sell and balancing it's news value with your own need for financial compensation.

Have a list of all the local TV newsroom phone numbers. If you plan on doing this kind of thing on a regular basis it will be worth your while to actually show up in person to meet face to face. Let them know you are serious about creating an ongoing relationship.

If your question is simply about that once in a lifetime shot, and you have no desire to continue doing this kind of thing, don't be surprised if all you are offered is a t-shirt instead of dollars for your material.

How you approach them, and then how YOU handle the negotiations in a timely manner is what will make the difference in the final dollar amount.
 
also keep a digital camera with you if you decide to be a stringer, our best stringer shoots video for us and takes pictures for the newspaper and ends up making about $350 a week (but he has connections everywhere so don't use this as a standard) But we are in Market 36 which is upstate SC and western NC so if you're in a bigger market then you might could make a similar amount. But Lensmith is dead on, get to know them and then they will call you for spot news in your area and you can spend your days NOT glued to the scanners.
 
If you're gonna string, be very polite to local law enforcement, fire and emergency
services... you'll get to know em/they'll get to know you quickly.

Most of the stringers I know are EMTs, fire, etc as their 'day jobs'.
 
Well I got my first news story and basically gave it away to the Associated Press for nothing.

They ran the story over the wire and a bunch of news papers picked it up and printed it.

Id like to try and be more prepared for the next one.
I was wondering if there is any way to get a press pass from a news agency if you are a stringer?
Also does anyone have a list of phone numbers for news desks? CNN etc.
Is there a contract most people use for selling the footage?
 
Most TV stations will only give out their press passes to payed employees for liability reasons, if something happens then the employee has to answer for it whereas if a stringer causes a scene or makes the station look bad then theres not much they can do and it just makes the station as a whole look bad and people wont understand that it was a stringer. However, big networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, FOXNEWS) deal almost exclusively with freelancers. If they are traveling to an event in Dallas, they will hire a shooter in Dallas and just send a reporter and field producer. But many freelancers can get press passes if they are well established and have a proven record of getting people or organizations good exposure, but it's all about your reputation.

As far as contacts goes, most of the unbelievable footage that you see on CNN and FOXNews comes to them through local affiliates. Thats about the only way to get your footage seen by the big guys. The way it works is this: you shoot something awesome, you take it to a local station, they decide if it's something that the whole world should see, if so, then they upload the footage to their wires and let other stations pick it up and the big guys monitor those wires as well and if it's good enough then there you go. But I will warn you, you will have VERY stiff competition, amazing things happen everyday. Everyday when I go to work at my station, I always get on or NBC News Channel video on demand and check out the cool stuff caught on tape. Typically, only something with national appeal will be picked up by the big guys from the get go. Long response but I hope it helps.
 
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