This document provides guidance on creating public service announcements (PSAs), scripts for advertisements, news scripts, and programs for special audiences such as children and women. It discusses the purpose and format of PSAs, advertisements, and news scripts. For PSAs, it outlines advantages like low cost and ability to encourage action, as well as limitations like limited airtime. For advertisements, it provides an example script and terminology. For news scripts, it discusses brevity, selection of key information, and terminology. The document also gives recommendations for creating effective programs for special audiences like children and women. It suggests appropriate formats and topics of discussion for each group, such as stories, activities and social issues for children's programs and

1. Scripting for PSA, Ad ,News and
Special Audience
Prepared by
Ms Rijitha R
MA, M.Phil (Comm), SET
Assistant Professor, PG Department of EM

2. PSA
• Public service announcements, or PSA's, are short messages produced on film or
audio file and given to radio and television stations.
Advantages:
• PSA's are generally inexpensive. Since the airtime is donated, your only cost is
production. If you keep to a tight budget, you can make PSA's very cheaply.
• Most stations will allow you to include a telephone number for more information
in your PSA.
• PSA's tend to be really effective at encouraging the audience to do something --
for example, call a phone number for more information, or have your pet spayed
or neutered.
• PSA's can raise awareness of your issue.

3. PSA
• Limitations of PSA’s:
• PSA's are often run as "filler" in the middle of the night or during other
times when only a few people are listening or watching.
• The competition among non-profit groups for free air time is very stiff --
depending on the market, there could be hundreds of other groups
competing for time on any given station.
• You may not be able to count on getting a lot of air time for your PSA's.

4. How Do You Write A PSA?
• Decide upon and clarify the purpose of your PSA. What are your goals here?
What do you want to accomplish by putting a PSA on the air? And for that matter,
why use a PSA instead of other publicity outlets?
• Target your audience. What type of people are you hoping to reach through your
PSA? This will help you focus in both your desired media outlets, and also upon
your PSA content.
• Survey your media outlets to best reach that audience. That means that you
need to know what media outlets are available in your particular geographic area.
• Prioritize your media outlets. That is, you need to know which outlets your
target audience is most likely to prefer. For example, is your audience more likely
to tune in to the 24-hour country music station than to the one that plays mostly
golden oldies? If so, then you point toward the country music outlet.

5. Basic Guidelines For PSA Format:
• Most stations prefer 30-second spots. If you're writing a television
PSA, you'll want to keep the announcer's copy 2 or 3 seconds shorter
than the entire length of the PSA. Television stations run on a much
tighter, more rigid schedule than radio stations, and you may find that
if your PSA runs exactly 30 seconds, for example, the station may
sometimes cut off the end.
Length of PSA 10 seconds 15 seconds 20 seconds 30 seconds
Number of words 20-25 words 30-35 words 40-50 words 60-75 words

6. How to write a PSA
• Creating an Outline Title of your PSA:
• Topic of your PSA: Subcategories of your topic:
1.
2.
3.
4.
• In one sentence, summarize the main idea you’re hoping to communicate in
your PSA:
• Emotions you are trying to communicate.
• Why this emotion makes sense for your PSA:
• Catchphrase

7. Example of PSA

9. Commercial Script

10. 7 Terms to Use When Writing a Commercial
Script
• There are seven common terms you’ll use to describe the visual or aural information in the script.
1.on-screen graphics.
2.MONTAGE: Include the word “MONTAGE” in the visual column before listing a series of short
shots sequenced together.
3.CU, MS, and WS: Use these abbreviations in the visual column to specify a close-up, medium
shot, and wide shot, respectively.
4.V.O.: Indicate voiceover dialogue in the audio column by writing "(V.O.)" after a character's name.
Example: "ANNOUNCER (V.O.): This week only, our entire inventory is 50 percent off!"
5.O.S.: Indicate off-screen dialogue in the audio column by writing "(O.S.)” after a character's name.
Example: "TOM (O.S.): Hey, look out!"
6.SFX: Indicate sound effects in the audio column by writing "SFX:" before a description of the
sound effect. Example: "SFX: Honking car horn."
7.MUSIC: Designate music in the audio column by writing a brief description of the type of song
you’re imagining. Example: "MUSIC: Hard rock power ballad."

11. Example of Ad’ Script

12. News Script

13. News Script
• The objective of news is
• (1) to accurately inform and
• (2) to entertain. Listener/viewer attention spans are short; also,
retention of vast amounts of spoken information is not high.
• So, in broadcast news, sentences and stories are short.
• Selection of information to include is crucial.

14. TV news writing terminology
• Slug
• Date
• Location
• Telecast time and
• Reporter
• Ex: Srinagar Express accident, Jammu, 24/02/2005, 6 AM, Victor
Bannerjee. (Normally slugs are written in the right side of the copy)

15. Example

16. News Script Example

17. Terms
• Anchor/ News caster Lead
• Sound bite (SB)- ranges from 20 seconds to 1 minute depending on the
importance of the person and the news. Ex: Actor Vijay (TC- 03:25- 04:05)
• Vox pop
• Time code (TC)- Numeric code, terms of hours, minutes, seconds and
frames. (Time codes of the sound bites and the visuals should be listed on
the left column of the script to help with editing)
• Stand up pt Piece to camera (PTC)- Analysis or comments recorded on
location
• Anchor tag or signoff-

18. Special Audience Programs

19. Special People's Programs
• These programs are with the following motives:
• To encourage special people
so that they may take part in life activities more effectively.
• To change common
normal peoples' negative attitude towards special people.
• Format
• The best format suitable for radio for special people
is talk shows. In talk shows special people with
different distinctions are invited and interviewed

20. Children's Programs
• Children can be divided in two categories according to their ages.
• Group one ------------------------- play group to 8 years
• Group two ------------------------- 9 years to school going age
• Pre-Program Preparation
• The First step is to know about the target audience that is audience research. In this step a producer must
• know the psyche of the children.
• Format
• The program to be produced for this group of children is normally:
• Children participated program
• Activities of a Children Program
• Story telling (an interesting character may be made like kahani chacha)
• Little riddles and puzzles
• Short questions
• Poems, stories, jokes

21. School going Children’s Program
• School going children are more mature ones so they can not be
entertained by stories. The suitable formats
• For this group of children are as under:
• Dramas
• Quiz programs

22. Special Audience Programs
Children Programmes:
• Protection of Rights of children
• Care and Support for Disabled Children and child labour, children under
difficult circumstances.
• Equal status of girls.
• Universal access to basic education to children and more attention to girls
education.
• Providing safe and supportive environment for children
• Improvement in the economic condition of family and self-reliant society.
• National and International cooperation for better future of the child.
• Safe drinking water facility and sanitary means of excreta disposal.

23. Special Audience Programs
• Formats for women's programs
Following formats may well suit the women's programs:
• Talk shows
• Anchorperson with guests
• Discussions
• Women Programmes:
• Atrocities on women,
• Trafficking of women
• Female feticide and infanticide
• Obscene portrayal of women
• Security for women
• Maternity benefits, creche etc. for working women
• Equal wage for equal work
• Ban child labour

24. Other Specific Audiences
• Industrial Workers
• Senior Citizens
• Farmers
• Armed Forces

25. Thank you