I was lucky enough to get myself accepted for an internship position in a television station based in Surabaya, Indonesia. SBO TV or ‘Suroboyo’ TV (Surabaya Media Television Pty Ltd) is a local Television channel, which covers various news and updates on East Java’s capital city, Surabaya, and its surroundings. SBO TV operates under a giant media company, Jawa Pos Group. Jawa Pos Group owns various media outlets such as national and local newspaper as well as regional and local television stations. My placement started July 8, 2013, where I was placed under SBO TV’s event and public relations department.
On my first day I was given a brief orientation on how the studio operates and the divisions of the TV station. I was also made aware of two major events to be held on July onwards, which I will be involved in. Through these events I was indirectly forced to see public relations from a media perspective.
The first event is “Bazaar Ramadhan 2013”. This event is held in partnership with local government as well as sponsored by a motor company, Honda. Bazaar Ramadhan 2013 is an event held in order to greet the Muslim ‘holy month’ of fasting. This event will be held in 10 different suburbs and comprise of: cheap ‘sembako’, live bands, tausiyah (muslim preaching), and hijabers (talkshow on how can muslim women wear a fashionable burqa). This is a big public relations event done by Honda in order to increase its existence in Surabaya suburban areas as well as to increase their sales.
The second event is “YMMF” or known as Yamaha Mio Music Festival. This is an event by a motor company, Yamaha, in conjunction with SBO TV. This is an annual event, which last for approximately three months. This event is a music competition event, but SBO TV is also in charge to do the pre-event. This refers to the main event’s socialisation, therefore SBO TV and Yamaha came up with a YMMF socialisation ‘school visit’. This school visit event comprise of visiting 48 schools in 24 different cities in East Java, Indonesia. The school visit event themes differ between schools. For private, Catholic and Christian schools the event socialisation’s theme will be about ‘the dangers of narcotics for teenagers’, where as for public and Muslim schools the theme will be a tausiyah or known as a Muslim preaching.
Both events are purposed for the benefit of both SBO TV and the two sponsors. Both Yamaha and Honda need media publications, which is why they approach SBO TV to be their partner. And likewise SBO TV is a regional television station, which many are still vague about what the TV station is all about. Furthermore in order for both parties to achieve publications SBO TV decided to do partnership events with both motor companies.
These events ran under a low budget, as a regional television station SBO TV got a limited budget. Therefore SBO TV delegate these tasks to the event and public relations department, and as the intern my first job was to find a host for Bazaar Ramadhan as well as to brief the host.
This is my first time of finding an appropriate host for a religious event, which differs from my own religion. I managed to contact the host for an appointment the next day and briefed him for the event itself. It was not an easy task as I was very nervous, additionally I personally think that this is something big to do for an intern as I was bringing and representing the company’s name to the host. As I was nervous, what I did was I tried to recall a second year PR unit: Media Relations. In the unit there is one task where students had to brief their speaker on a topic before the press conference start. So I used the same techniques to brief my host, Izaaq, the thing that differs is that I did not use a question and answer document.
My story shall continues...
