Monday, August 18, 2008

Is the Olympics Drowning Out Other Coverage?



Have you been holding back news because you are afraid of it getting swamped (no pun intended) by Olympics coverage? On the other hand, are you using the Olympics as a smoke screen to release less-than-positive news?

I ask these questions because I got a follow-up from the PR rep for Women Against Fantasy Sports to the post I did over the weekend. She provided the rationale for launching the site without a press release:
I advised them to delay announcing their site launch, which was August 8, given it was the opening day of the Beijing Olympics. I thought it could get lost in a sea of Olympic hype, and I also wanted WAFS to have an opportunity to work out any kinks with their site launch. We went out on BusinessWire this morning, which was the plan all along. [Here’s the release — JG]

I think this makes sense, and if I hadn’t happen to see the woman with the T-shirt, I would never have known about their site and their release would have been news to me.

Two more bits of critique: yes, a lot of sports coverage is tilted toward the Olympics (natch), but at places like ESPN.com, the fantasy beat still needs content and they aren’t covering the Olympics, so an avoid-the-Olympics strategy isn’t (imo) necessary. It’s also not necessary in hard-core business coverage, or lifestyle coverage, because they aren’t devoting a lot of space to the Olympics either.

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