So You Want To Be On Television...

The California Psychologist, July 1992

By Linda Blakeley, Ph.D.

Have you ever been bitten by the media bug? If you have and want to produce your own television program, you may want to get in touch with your local public acce3s television station. Public access television is a wonderful opportunity for you as a psychologist to educate your local community on topics of vital importance. It is a valuable tool for you to tell them about your specialty, about free services that you might offer and to inform them about the most up to date treatments that are available.

Since public access programming is non-commercial, you must be willing to educate the public in a general way. Cable public access guidelines prohibit using this medium to directly sell your services. However, if you conduct any free lectures, hold weekly support groups or are hosting a free drop-in group, then you are free to tell the audience the location, time and date of the event. At the end of each program, you can announce a telephone number to call for information and give your address.

I’ve been producing and hosting Positive Self Images on Century Cable Public Access Television for over a year. My specialty is the treatment of eating disorders.

Once a week, I conduct a free support group, The Tuesday Night Support Group, in Beverly Hills, under the auspices of the National Association of Anorexia and Bulimia, a national non-profit organization. The programming offers the viewer the opportunity to listen to me dialogue with other experts, learn relaxation exercises and become informed about recovery issues.

Century Cable also gives you the opportunity of producing public service announcements which can air separately from the regular programming. Finally, you can advertise your events on their community bulletin board, which is televised between programs many times during the day.

Hosting Positive Self Images has given me the opportunity to perfect my interviewing skills and learn to be comfortable in front of the camera. Further, I am able to express my creativity in ways that are deeply gratifying. Being a public access producer has been a way for me to “get my feet wet,” learning some of the basics about television production. I’m not going on to develop and produce projects for television and the home video market that have psychological and social implications.

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