Publicity Assistant Online

Searching the Main Media Database

Publicity Assistant 2000 allows you to easily search and sort through your Main Media Data to select the contacts best suited for your project. Searching also allows you to easily find contacts in the Main Media Data by searching for specific contact information (i.e. last name, callsign, etc.) or by using the codes to find groups of contacts.

There are two types of searches – detailed searches and quick searches. To simply locate a contact, or to find an organization, the Quick Search feature is the quickest, easiest way to go. For more involved searches, use the Publicity Assistant 2000 search engine, described below (you can also use the search engine for simple searches – i.e. last name).

To search the Main Media Data, select the Main Media Data tab in the main window, then press the search button on the toolbar (or type control-s). The search engine screen will appear:

You may select any of the fields to perform a search. For example, to search by last name, simply enter the first few letters of the last name in the Last Name field. To find all television contacts in Alaska and Augusta, check off Alaska and Augusta in the Markets field, and select the TV button towards the bottom of the screen. When you have finished entering in your criteria, press the search button in the bottom right corner of the search window.

Tip: If you are not sure of the spelling of the contacts last name, you can still try to search by Last Name. Enter the name as it sounds, and check the Search for Similar Sounding Names button. Publicity Assistant 2000 will search for similar sounding last names. You may also search for embedded words and phrases within the Title and Callsign fields.

After pressing the search button, Publicity Assistant 2000 will display the results of your search in the main window (still under the Main Media Data tab). Notice that the search button on the toolbar is highlighted in red. This is to indicate to you that you are viewing the results of a search. Also, notice that the number of contacts that met your search criteria is displayed in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. To clear the search and view the entire database, simply press the search button again. It will revert to its normal blue color, indicating that your are viewing the Main Media Data in it’s original form, and that you are ready to perform a new search. To add the results of your search to a project, see Adding Contacts to Review Lists or Adding Contacts to a Promotional Tour.

Other important features of searching include:

Selecting Media Type. Use the TV/RADIO/PRINT/ONLINE/OTHER buttons to limit your search to only records of a particular type. Leaving all choices blank searches for all media types.
Requiring and excluding category codes. You may opt to require or exclude any category codes from your searches. For example, if you have a category for NATIONAL and others for ART and SCIENCE, you may select the ART and SCIENCE categories, and select the exclude button for NATIONAL to search for local contacts (i.e. non-national). Alternatively, you may require NATIONAL to ensure that you only obtain NATIONAL contacts.
Market Rank. If you have entered market rankings into your market codes (see the Advanced Features topic), you can search by market rank. In the Rank boxes of the search screen, enter the range of market rankings which you would like searched (i.e. 1-10).
Circulation, Hits, Watts and Rank. If you have entered the Circulation, Hits, Watts or Rank into your contact’s record you may limit your search to specific circulation, Hits, Watts or Rank. Enter a range in the “greater than” and “less than” fields and use this as part of your search criteria.
Updated: earlier than and less than. You may limit your search by choosing only to view the most up to date records or if you are cleaning up your database you may choose to search for only older records. Enter a range of dates in the earlier than and less than fields and use this as part of your search criteria.

Note: You can search by any single criteria. To search by media type, you must combine it with any other criteria, such as market, category, or name. You only need to type in the first few characters of any search.

For more information, see:

Quick Search