Home > Outreach Case Studies > Two Towns of Jasper

By Whitney Dow and Marco Williams

In this Case Study
Introduction
Promotion
Outreach
Website
Viewer Response

Promotion

The overall press and promotional campaign included participation in the summer Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, major television appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Oprah: After the Show, Nightline with Ted Koppel (two programs broadcast on ABC) and a Saturday morning Weekend Today Show on NBC. The PBS/ABC broadcasts received tremendous attention. In order to help promote the broadcasts, ABC News Nightline encouraged its affiliates to air special promos. Its media relations department added the POV/ABC release to its "bundle" to affiliates for their local press. In addition, Nightline did a special satellite feed to its affiliated stations of Two Towns of Jasper video highlights and the POV-produced Behind the Lens interviews with filmmakers Whitney Dow and Marco Williams.

In all, the initiative was covered by more than 800 print, radio, television and Web stories. "Two Towns of Jasper offers a disturbing montage of different realities that inhabit the same place and time," wrote Josh Friedman in the Los Angeles Times. "It also portrays hope in a town looking hard at itself and removing barriers." Mike McDaniel of the Houston Chronicle described the POV special as "eye-opening and thought-provoking."

Press coverage as of 1/31/03:

• TV (13 placements); radio (17 placements); Print (442 placements)
• Major feature coverage and reviews in daily papers (386 placements); weeklies (15); Monthlies (30) and Wires (11).
• Web coverage: 412; Web chat: Washington Post.com (1) total tally 885
• In addition, P.O.V purchased advertisements in The Washington Post and The Jasper Newsboy

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