Bookings & Coverage

What you will learn

• The four tabs Bookings & Coverage uses, and the work each one carries.
• How to book an interview -- the fields, the status values, the Type and Method options.
• How TALENT & ACCESS shares the schedule: portal links, QR codes, alerts and the Schedule Administrators role.
• How to log coverage that came out of an interview -- and why reach, sentiment, CQI and clip files are handled for you.
• Where Bookings & Coverage hands off to Media Clips, Story Performance and the Exclusion Register.

The mental model

Bookings & Coverage is where broadcast and interview work lives for one Story. Think of it as two jobs:

• The logistics job: book interviews between your talent and outlets, tell the talent when and how, and track whether each slot is confirmed.
• The results job: once an interview airs or runs, log the coverage so it counts toward the Story.

Buzzscribed pulls the heavy lifting on quality scoring off your plate. Reach comes from the outlet record, so the audience figure stays consistent across every piece of coverage from that outlet. Sentiment, CQI and message pull-through are derived from your media-monitoring analysis (the AMEC Barcelona scoring layer), so the quality numbers behind the Success Score line up with the actual content of the coverage. Clip files -- cuttings, screengrabs, recordings -- live on the separate Media Clips page.

Open the page from the TRACK menu. ACTIVITY loads first; BOOKINGS and MANAGE COVERAGE light up once a Story is selected. When Meltwater is connected to your tenant, a fourth tab -- MELTWATER COVERAGE -- appears for triaging monitored mentions.

The tabs

ACTIVITY

The landing tab. Recent activity and the Story context. Pick the Story you are working on; the rest of the page follows.

BOOKINGS

The interview diary for this Story. Two sub-tabs sit inside it: BOOKINGS (the schedule itself with quick stats for Confirmed and Tentative counts) and TALENT & ACCESS (portal access for talent and schedule administrators). A status filter and an Include Completed toggle bring past interviews back into view when you need them.

MANAGE COVERAGE

Where you log coverage. Two panels side by side: Reported Coverage (what you have already recorded) and NewsWire Leads (pickups detected from your NewsWire page that you can convert into coverage records). Both support bulk actions -- bulk-convert leads, bulk-exclude items.

MELTWATER COVERAGE

Visible when Meltwater is connected. A triage queue of monitored mentions -- confirm the genuine coverage, dismiss the noise. Confirmed items flow into the Story the same way logged coverage does.

Booking an interview

From the BOOKINGS sub-tab, open the booking form. The fields you fill in are:

• Talent -- a dropdown of the talent attached to this Story, with a TBC option for slots that are pending and an "Add New Talent" shortcut.
• Book for Talent in Time Zone -- the time zone you are scheduling against, so the times you enter are unambiguous. A separate "View In" selector lets you re-display the slot in another time zone without changing the booking itself.
• Start Time and End Time -- datetime fields. Buzzscribed warns you if a slot double-books the same talent.
• Outlet -- chosen by searching your CRM outlets, so the outlet record (and its reach) flows through to coverage. Picking the outlet also pulls in its contact details.
• Contact -- the interviewer or producer, populated from the outlet search.
• Status -- Confirmed, Client-Confirmed, Tentative, or Awaiting Outlet. New bookings default to Tentative.
• Type -- Live, Pre-Recorded, or N/A.
• Method -- Phone, Dial-in, Video Conference, In-Studio, or On-Location.
• Booking Notes -- a rich-text field for dial-in details, talking points, producer notes.

The form shows the outlet contact's details (name, email, phone, backup number) read-only beneath the booking, with a Change Outlet link and journalist-intel context where Buzzscribed has it. Once the booking is saved, you can email a confirmation to the contact straight from the schedule.

Briefing talent for the interview

A confirmed interview slot is half the job; the other half is preparing the spokesperson to land the message. The discipline that pays off:

• Brief the format. Live or pre-recorded, phone or studio, six minutes or thirty, host's style and bias. Send the brief 24-48 hours before the slot so the spokesperson rehearses in the right register.
• Brief the questions. Anticipate the three obvious questions and the two awkward ones. For the Globex Wellbeing Index, the obvious questions are "what's the headline figure?", "why are hybrid teams worst hit?", "what should employers do?". The awkward ones are "is this just Globex marketing itself?" and "what about your own employees?". Prepare polished answers to all five.
• Brief the bridges. Train the spokesperson to bridge from a difficult question back to the key messages. "That's an interesting question, and what the data really shows is..." A short bridge bank -- three to five phrases -- covers most awkward turns.
• Brief the proof points. One specific number per key message, memorised. Vague figures lose to specific ones. "23%" beats "almost a quarter"; "4,000 respondents" beats "a large sample".
• Brief the wardrobe. Solid colour, no fine patterns (they strobe on broadcast camera), no client logos that read as paid placement. Sounds trivial; matters on TV.

The Campaign Builder TALENT tab's INTERVIEW PREP sub-tab holds the talking points and question tips for each spokesperson; they flow into the Spokesperson Pack PDF and the Schedule portal, so the talent reads them in their own preparation. Use that as the single source of truth across the team.

After the interview, debrief within 24 hours: what went well, what landed weak, what the host pulled at. The debrief feeds the next brief.

TALENT & ACCESS -- sharing the schedule

This sub-tab inside BOOKINGS manages who can see the live schedule through the external Schedule portal. Two groups:

Story Talent

Every person on the Story's talent list gets a personal portal link automatically, scoped by their own auth code. Per talent you can: open the portal, copy the link, show a QR code, email the link, or regenerate the auth code (which invalidates the old link and issues a new one). The Enable Alerts toggle controls whether that person gets an email when their schedule changes -- flip it on for spokespeople who want a live thread on their slots, off for ones who prefer to check the portal at their own pace.

Schedule Administrators

People on the client or partner side who should see the whole schedule, not just one person's slots. Add an administrator with a name and email, choose whether they get email alerts, and they get their own portal link with the same copy / QR / email / edit / delete actions. Email All and Email All Talent buttons send everyone their links in one move when you need to refresh access at the start of a Story.

What the recipient sees: the Schedule portal opens on the link they received, shows that person their interviews for the Story, and offers Accept / Confirm on each slot plus calendar sync -- subscribe the whole schedule to Google Calendar or Outlook, copy a calendar feed URL, or add a single interview. It is access-scoped by auth code, separate from any Buzzscribed login.

Logging coverage

When an interview airs -- or any earned coverage lands for this Story -- record it from MANAGE COVERAGE using Add Coverage. The dialog carries TRADITIONAL and SOCIAL sub-tabs.

For Add Traditional Coverage the fields are: Media Type (the outlet type), Region, Contact Name, Outlet (narrowed by region and media type), NewsWire File (optional -- which release file was used, or Organic), Time Zone, Coverage Date, and an Add to Exclusion List option (Contact Only or Contact and Outlet) so the contact drops off the pitch list for this Story once they have covered it. The SOCIAL sub-tab captures Outlet/Publication, URL, Time Zone and Coverage Date.

Three things you might expect to fill in -- reach, sentiment, clip files -- flow in automatically:

• Reach comes from the outlet record. If an outlet's reach is wrong, fix it on the outlet, and every piece of coverage from that outlet updates with it.
• Sentiment, CQI and message pull-through are derived from your monitoring analysis. They populate once the analysis runs.
• Clip files live on the Media Clips page -- one home for every cutting, screengrab and recording, accessible across every reporting layer.

The NewsWire Leads panel runs the other direction: it shows pickups Buzzscribed has detected on the Story's NewsWire page, and you convert the genuine ones into Reported Coverage records, singly or in bulk.

Worked example: the Globex Wellbeing Index broadcast slot

1. Acme PR books a Tentative slot for Dr Helen Ashworth (Chief People Officer, Globex Industries) with a tier-1 national broadcaster next Tuesday 09:00 in London time, Method = Video Conference.
2. The producer confirms by email. Olivia switches Status to Confirmed and emails the booking confirmation from the schedule.
3. On TALENT & ACCESS, Dr Ashworth already has a portal link. Olivia emails it to her with one click. Dr Ashworth opens it, hits Accept on the slot, and subscribes the schedule to her Outlook calendar.
4. The interview airs. From MANAGE COVERAGE, Olivia clicks Add Coverage > Traditional, picks the broadcaster from the outlet search, sets the Coverage Date, and ticks Contact and Outlet on the exclusion option so the producer drops off the next-wave pitch list.
5. Reach lands automatically from the outlet record. Once monitoring analysis runs, sentiment and CQI populate. The Globex Index Success Score updates.
6. Acme PR uploads the off-air recording on Media Clips as a Radio ROT. The clip threads into every Globex client report from there.

Frequently asked

What are the booking statuses?

Confirmed, Client-Confirmed, Tentative, Awaiting Outlet. New bookings start Tentative. Past interviews are surfaced via the Include Completed toggle rather than a status.

How do I record what kind of interview it was -- TV, radio, online?

The booking carries Type (Live / Pre-Recorded / N/A) and Method (Phone / Dial-in / Video Conference / In-Studio / On-Location). Media type -- the outlet type -- is captured when you log the resulting coverage, where it influences how Buzzscribed scores the piece.

Where does the audience figure for coverage come from?

From the outlet record. If an outlet's reach needs updating, fix it on the outlet and every piece of coverage from that outlet updates with it.

Where does the tone / sentiment of coverage come from?

From your monitoring analysis (the AMEC Barcelona scoring layer). Sentiment, CQI and message pull-through populate once the analysis runs.

Where do I upload the actual clip?

On the Media Clips page. Bookings & Coverage records that coverage existed; Media Clips holds the file and feeds it into reporting.

Can a client see this schedule?

Yes -- add them as a Schedule Administrator on TALENT & ACCESS. They get a portal link with whole-schedule visibility, separate from any Buzzscribed login.

What is the MELTWATER COVERAGE tab?

A triage queue for mentions picked up by Meltwater monitoring. Confirm the ones that are genuine coverage; dismiss the rest. Visible when Meltwater is connected to your tenant.

What to read next

• Media Clips -- where the actual clip files live and how they reach client reports.
• Exclusion Register -- the suppression list that the exclusion option on a coverage record feeds.
• Story Performance -- where bookings, coverage, reach and quality roll up for the Story.