Why we start with the newsroom, not a rate card
When a producer asks me what newsroom coordination costs, I ask about the building before the budget. A bulletin team of six sharing one desk and one gallery needs something quite different from a rolling operation with reporters filing from three locations. Both are called coordination, yet the hours behind them barely resemble each other.
So our prices are written around the work described in a quotation, not around a fixed package. Newsroom Coordination covers running orders, story tracking and handover routines. What those three things involve depends on how many people touch a story, how many editions you run and how much of the current routine is already written down. That is where the cost comes from.
Below I set out the pieces that move the figure most, in the order we usually discuss them, so you can judge your own newsroom before we speak.
The first driver: how many editions and handovers
A single evening bulletin has one deadline and one handover at the end of the shift. A newsroom with a morning programme, a midday update and an evening show has several, and each handover is a point where a story can lose its owner or its status. We build and test a routine for every handover, so more editions mean more design time and more rehearsal.
Shift patterns matter as well. If one team covers the whole day, the routine can stay light. If crews change over mid-afternoon, the handover note, the story tracker and the verbal briefing all need to say the same thing in the same order, and that takes careful drafting.
We cost this by counting handovers per week, not by counting staff. It is the most honest measure we have found, because a small team with four handovers a day costs more to coordinate than a large team with one.
- Number of editions or programmes per day
- Number of shift changes and handover points
- Whether one team or several covers the schedule
The second driver: how stories are tracked today
Some newsrooms arrive with a shared document everyone trusts. Others have three spreadsheets, a whiteboard and a habit of asking across the room. Neither is wrong, but the second takes longer to untangle, and untangling is billed as working time.
Story tracking is mostly about agreeing what each status means. Is a story in progress when a reporter has been assigned, or when the first draft exists? We sit with editors and producers, write those definitions down in plain words and set up a tracker that matches them. The more definitions are disputed, the more sessions it takes to settle them.
We work with the tools you already own wherever we can. Asking a team to adopt something new adds training time and adds cost, so we only suggest it when the existing arrangement is truly the cause of missed stories.
The third driver: running orders and the gallery link
A running order looks simple until you ask who is allowed to change it and when. In a tight newsroom, a late item can ripple through graphics, autocue and the gallery within a minute. We write the rules for changes, including a cut-off point after which only the producer may alter the order.
Where the gallery team works from the same document as the newsroom, setup is quicker. Where the two work from separate lists that are reconciled by hand, we spend longer designing the link between them and testing it in a rehearsal.
Rehearsals are a real part of the price. We prefer to run at least one mock bulletin with your people so the routine is tested under mild pressure, because a routine that has only been read is not yet a routine.
- Rules on who may change the running order
- How newsroom and gallery lists are kept in step
- Number of rehearsal sessions on site
On-site days, remote work and what is included
Most of our newsroom work is split between time at your premises and time spent drafting at our end. On-site days are priced per day and cover observation, workshops and rehearsal. Drafting time covers the written routines, templates and handover notes you keep afterwards. Travel from Brighton is added where the location is outside the south coast, and we say so in the quotation.
Each quotation lists what is included: the documents delivered, the sessions attended, any follow-up call after the first week. It also lists what is not, such as extra training for new starters joining later or changes to a newsroom system we do not manage.
If your scope changes halfway, we tell you in writing before we do the extra work, never after. The price you agreed stays the price unless you agree to the new scope.
What to prepare before you ask for a quotation
You do not need a full brief. A short note covering the number of editions you run, how many people handle a story from first tip to broadcast, and the tools you use now is enough for us to give a useful first reply. If you have an existing running order template, send it along.
It also helps to say what is going wrong. Missed stories, duplicated work, unclear ownership after a shift change: naming the problem lets us suggest where to spend and where not to. Sometimes the answer is two sessions and a one-page handover sheet, and we will say so.
After that, the steps are plain. You enquire through the contact page, we send a written quotation, you confirm it, and we invoice for payment by bank transfer. Cancellations and refunds follow the payment and refund policy on this site.
- Editions and shift changes per week
- Number of people involved per story
- Current tools and any existing templates
- The main problem you want solved
The price of newsroom coordination follows the shape of your operation: how many handovers, how stories are tracked, how the running order meets the gallery and how much rehearsal you want. None of it is mysterious, and none of it needs to be guessed. Tell us how your newsroom runs, and we will write down what the work involves and what it costs, plainly and in advance. If the answer is a smaller job than you expected, we will say that as well.