Ahmed Al Kiremli: Hi everyone this is Ahmed Al Kiremli and welcome to Be Efficient Tv. The mission of this web TV show is to boost the efficiency of your business and life through tips and tricks from leading experts and today I have with me Deborah Robinson, she is an award-winning journalist and she is an author and television personality, welcome to the show Deborah.

Deborah Robinson: Thank you so very much for having me, great to be here.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: My pleasure, how did you start your career in the media?

Deborah Robinson: I started by actually going to college for psychology and then I switched communications and then I switch to journalism and that’s where I fell in love, coming out of college with a degree in broadcast journalism I got my first job in radio as a news director at a radio station doing the morning news and after that I decided a little bit after that I decided to go back to college and get my Masters degree in journalism and I didn’t finish that because I was literally working in the industry and didn’t feel the need to complete it but I left the radio station and went into management at a TV station there in Little Rock and that is where it all really started to flourish.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: All right what is your focus currently in the media world?

Deborah Robinson: My focus currently is where it has always been for me, I believe my job, my assignment, when I’m here on this earth to do is to seek, reveal and communicate truth through the media and my assignment right now is surrounding all of the projects that I, that come to me, I don’t seek them out, it seems like every time there is a story or something that happens and I’m supposed to work on it, research it, develop it, do a story on or an interview whatever it just touches my heart and that is what I usually go for, it’s always open for stories that I’m passionate about, something on the news makes me cry and I know that’s what I’m supposed to do something about to bring some sort of like to it, to understanding, to bring it out more in the open so my focus is on working on stories and issues that I believe can change the world and start by changing my life.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you work for a channel or do you do it by your own within your company, how do you do that?

Deborah Robinson: I’m independent and that has always been important to me, I worked for a station for the first seven years of my career and I realized that if I wanted to continue to tell the stories that were important to me without having someone decide the stories for me that I need to be on my own, at that time I was interviewing some major people who are pushing me to get out on my own because they knew the kind of stories that I wanted to tell and it wouldn’t be possible to tell those stories from the station’s point of view because they weren’t the mainstream stories that were important to them.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you started working in radio and then TV and then you quit working for the channels and you made your own company to create your own content?

Deborah Robinson: That’s right, I started my company Robinson Omni media studios to create my own content because I knew it was important and once I started, you go through the things that businesses go through, it was amazing that when I left the station I didn’t realize that I never really had to worry about who was paying the photographer and it was paying all of the bills and then it came to the point of while you’re on your own enough you want to do the story you have to consider do you have the staff to put on it, who is paying the photographer, who is pay for the story? So things change, I started not only doing my own projects but doing projects for others and now I have come full circle and now I am thank God doing my own stories again.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you do like a documentary story, videos, interviews, what is your focus in terms of story, or do you do everything?

Deborah Robinson: I do everything, it really depends on, what I decide, for example in doing a series in Little Rock, I’m from Little Rock and I’m doing a series called conversations with Arkansas governors where I’m interviewing all of the Arkansas governors, there are six of them and an upcoming seventh at the Robinson theater there, that’s a theater piece that we put together and we will be interviewing all the governors for that and then on other projects I’m doing a book project as well so it all just depends on what’s going on what I feel is the best way to handle that project, I’m doing research right now on 9/11 that will eventually become a documentary so that is documentary work, I’m also doing research on juvenile spending life in prison without parole that as well will become a documentary but along the way they will be pieces that I use on the Internet to help bring the awareness to the story into the issues.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: I see like a very nice setup in terms of live interviews, all of these you paid by your own you don’t have like a contract with a channel that pays for it and then you give them the content?

Deborah Robinson: No I don’t, my company, we are from conception to distribution, and once we can see the idea we have to find a way to pay for it so we either go after investors or we go after sponsors however we find a way to pay for that project and then once we pay for that we paid for it and we do it and the whole focus is that I’m still independent and I’m still deciding the projects that I work on and that’s really important for me.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What change in this, what did independency give you?

Deborah Robinson: Freedom, rhythm of my time and that is very important, the only things that you come here on this earth with that you can really control is your time and your intellect and those are the two things that this independence gives me, and gives me control of intellectual property, there is nothing in the world that you can own more than your intellectual property, the things that come out of you so it has given me total control over that meaning that when I study whatever I put it when it comes out that is my property, that is the gift that God has given me to get to the world so as I give that to the world, whatever that content might be I keep control of it and nobody else controls how it goes out when the goes out or if it goes out and then my time is very important, being able to go and spend now on months in Little Rock doing the Arkansas project or to stay here in Las Vegas to actually work on my talk show, it’s all about freedom for me, I was never very fond of going to car crashes and doing other stories that were important for me, I wanted to do something more born with my time and independence has given me that.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Great, good for you, very few journalists go this entrepreneurial road, I see all of them working for the channels so how did you decide that and how long do you spend on the channels the radio before you made this quantum leap?

Deborah Robinson: I was with the radio station for less than a year, the day I graduated I had interviewed a guy while I was with the radio station, the television station in college I interviewed him and he said when you graduate I have a job for you and literally the day I graduated he was managing the finances at a radio station and they hired me over at the radio station’s news director and I was there a short amount of time and then I moved into television at that time I was like the youngest station manager at the TV station there and I managed the station along with I started producing television programs myself there and probably five years in I realized because I was working on stories that I felt were very important but they weren’t that important to management and so one story in particular that really started me to thinking that it is now time for me to do my own thing, if I don’t I won’t be able to continue to tell the stories that I want to tell and it just happened that everybody I was interviewing and some of the people really made a big impact on my life, Tony Brown I remember interviewing him at that time he had several shows on the public television on asked him how do you do exactly what you want to do, the stories that you want to do, you produce your own content, how do you do it? And he said because I own my own content that is the key, I own my own stuff, I find everything for my own projects and I started thinking this might be the way I want to go and then I interviewed Louis Farrakhan and that interview he asked me he said okay turn the cameras off enough to return the cameras off because it was a really in-depth interview and we know that he is very outspoken and has some not mainstream things that he talks about, he said turn the cameras off and asked me if I really thought they would let me air the interview and I said yes, I was with BET at the time and I said yes this is, they would never stop me from marrying anything and he said if you really want to speak truth and to work on stories that are important and can change lives you can have to do it on your own, you’re going to have to leave the station. So I kept hearing these major people in the media who are totally taking control of their message and what they were doing, they kept speaking to me that it was time that I left and I was on my own and it finally hit home when I was working on a story, I was working on the series on gangs in Little Rock and I happen to come across a story where two young men were killed at a liquor store and it was late at night when we get the story and I was actually working on the gang story and I told my photographer that we needed the video of the Sirens and to go back down there to get the video because that’s all I wanted, I did know was going on we just need video, he went down and he came back and he said Deborah it’s horrible done there, two young boys have been killed and it’s horrible. I was working on the story on gangs so I told him now I need you to go back in and you to shoot this time shoot, I want to see death, I need these gets to see what that looks like, shoot up close should the blood she whatever is happening and what you shoot it. He went back and he shot this and it was just amazing and the next day I said to my boss did you hear about what happened at the liquor store we were there we got this great footage and he said where’s the footage and I said I have it and he said I do you lock it up and I said what you mean lock it up? I don’t have a way to lock up footage, and he said okay well by a safe, it’s that important. And this was interesting that this footage would be so important that it turns out that it was a major story because it happened to be an officer that did the killings and it turned out to be major but the mother contacted me because she knew that I had the footage and she asked me if she could use the footage because she was considering a lawsuit against the police department and all of that and my boss told me they would have to subpoena us for it there was no way she was getting it and she worked for the company, it was amazing to see the political, how political things were and at that moment I made the decision, I said know what I will do is the stories that are important that story was important, whether was a cop involved or not, what was important was that this woman’s son was killed and I had video that would prove that it was not a legal aboveboard killing and I couldn’t share with her and eventually she subpoenaed and got the footage and went to court and the city along with the police department ended up paying her a lot of money but it all started because I had the footage and I was able to share that, I was able to tell her that something was wrong, it didn’t happen the way they said it happened and through that I was able to change lives and I saw the power of what I was doing and I realized that I didn’t want the politics on what I knew, I wanted the ability to do something right. So those things lead me and it was almost like I didn’t have a choice, I knew that I had to go and I knew there were stories that would be brought to me that were more important and I want to tell the stories.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You started bootstrapping these ventures or did you have an investor when you just made the move?

Deborah Robinson: I didn’t have an investor in the beginning, I started with just my company and I eventually raised some finances for the venture but those were very very short-lived finances and eventually I had to figure it out so the process was defined investor and that investor takes care of some overall foundation things but every project that came long after that I still had to raise the money for that project and that meant I had to go back to the table to find an investor or I had to be creative in financing it through sponsorships and product placement and other things like that.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So a project like let’s say if it’s an interview show is it a project that you find like a specific investor for it but if you are shooting certain news or things like you have investors who get involved in your company or do you just bring them let’s say invest for me for the stories that I’m going to cover for one month or two months, how does it work?

Deborah Robinson: It works both ways if I don’t have an overall investor sometimes it’s harder to find that than it is to find someone who might be interested in the project for example I might find someone who might be interested in 9/11 research but they are not necessarily interested in funding my entire company so that way I can bring them into just finance the 9/11 research or just finance the story on juveniles in prison, I might even find grant monies to do the juvenile spending life in prison without parole so there are different ways I go about looking at a per project but recently I raised money for a project here in Las Vegas, the reason I moved to Las Vegas was to start a talk show on the strip and we raise the finances, we had the investors and we started the show and then in the middle of our first season the investors couldn’t come up with additional money that was needed so we had to go back to the table and put the show on hiatus and go back to the table and raise the money and at that time it had taken us a year to find investors and we were talking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars investors and up so it had taken us quite a while to find those investment dollars so what we decided to do was another friend came to me with another business opportunity so what we did and what we are doing now is we are funding the talkshow through this business opportunity and not only that we are showing and sharing with other companies and other journalists like myself independent people who want to stay independent how they can also fund their projects through the same way that we are doing ours.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: In terms of statistics like what is the percentage of independent journalists compared with people who are employed?

Deborah Robinson: While I’m not sure, I don’t know if I can give you a number on that, it’s really hard though to be out here independent but it is getting easier because of how people are watching television and what is going on now the Internet has sort of like even the playing field and given us an opportunity to do more and to share more so we don’t necessarily need the big television station behind us anymore and for those of us who really take journalism seriously it’s hard to work for a station that when you are not having an opportunity to do the stories are really making a difference, if you look at news if you look at your local news station you don’t find a lot of investigative reporting and you don’t find a lot of stories that really make a difference, you find your car cashes and all of the things that are really not that important to journalists who are.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So sorry to cut you off, how much percentage do you publish yourself and you sell to the other channels and like newspapers?

Deborah Robinson: I don’t sell my content, content is king right now if you have content that is a good thing because everybody is looking for great content but what I don’t do is I don’t sell it because it is really all that, it’s my work, all that I have, what I do is for example I do a series on the ABC affiliate here where I do a story and then I place it on that affiliate but I don’t sell the content that so that they have the copyright for, I can repurpose it, I own for example the series in Little Rock where we interviewed all the Arkansas governors, that series is a very good series, it’s history making, for once we’re going to have every Arkansas government and there are only six of them living, you are going to have them in conversations one after the other and so we have already, ATN which is the local public television there, they’ve already purchased the licensing rights, the international rights, the rights for education because they know that the series is going to be important and they want to be able to put it out so they have already acquired the rights pending us delivering the shows so that was an easy sell, I simply made a call to the public television station and told them what we were doing with the series and immediately she said we wanted, we want this areas, what we need and I wanted to make sure one that I didn’t given exclusivity because giving them exclusivity would totally me that I couldn’t Erin on another station or I can put it online and I had basically given up my content so they have not exclusivity but they are going and distributing it through all of the public television stations to all of the schools that they have access to for teaching so it’s really cool if you find a station that realizes that you have great content but the key is anybody could have done this but my company conceived it, I thought you know Arkansas is where I’m from, when is the last time we heard from Gov. David Prior or Huckabee or Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabae is going to be running for president again and I’m having interviews with them reflecting on what their life is like as an Arkansas governor, the first sponsor we went after his the one who owns the theater, the lever system, they said absolutely we will sponsor it so they were offer sponsor which allowed us to move forward with the program and then we seek additional sponsors after that but that starts next month so that’s the process of how it goes, I basically conceive a project and then I find who might be interested in this project and then we see if they could provide the finances to make it happen.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you create the idea of the show and contact the channel before you start the show for you start the show and then you start pitching them?

Deborah Robinson: It depends I did this before because having a station connected with the show before we start seeking sponsors helps because when you can tell a sponsor that we already have a station and we are going to get additional exposure by becoming involved.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Yes you have someone backing you up. So the investors will be more interested.

Deborah Robinson: Yes that helps to get sponsors.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And just I want to ask about like how does it work when you make the deal with the channels like is it always you keep the rights for yourself and you can sell it to other channels or sometimes they want to have exclusivity in terms of the deal?

Deborah Robinson: Either way, it depends how you negotiate, of course they probably wanted exclusivity but I believe that I’m creating history so why would I give it away unless they were paying really really big money? That’s another thing, if they were paying right, if the cost was right I’m sure I would consider giving them exclusivity but they know it’s history and they are not paying for exclusivity, they are paying for what they can do with it and it all depends on what the station wants, if you are trying to sell something to now when I go to the local because now in negotiations with the local affiliates, ABC and NBC affiliates to air it and possibly do it live, well that is another thing, they of course one exclusivity and that I won’t necessarily air it on their competitor, I’m not going to give ABC and then turn around and put it on CBS and CBS wouldn’t want to be there because I had already aired in the market in the couldn’t make it any money on it so it all depends, it would be now okay I have a station exclusive to that area so the area can have exclusivity or if you are thinking about a national like a cable network or something they would definitely want exclusivity on a project like this.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And are they play a flat fee or per views or how does it work?

Deborah Robinson: They pay a flat fee, not per views, especially not a public television station, they negotiate how much they want her show if we deliver to them seven shows than they pay a certain amount for every show and we just want to make sure that when it’s all over we pay for production and all of the costs and we make some money on it as well.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Is there like a certain average for the prices let’s say for a story for five minutes or show of one hour can you give us an idea about the prices or does it depend how popular is it? In general if it’s a new show or a new story.

Deborah Robinson: It depends, I remember when I was working for BET I was an independent correspondent some years ago I would deliver two minutes because I was independent, I was covering the Clinton election, his run for president, they knew the story on this we would edit it in Little Rock and then we would send it there and the price would very, I would make maybe $1500-$2500 on a minute and a half piece and then they would also pay the photographer and the other fees, so it all depends, now if you are delivering to a major network an hour-long show then you are in the major dollars, the hundreds of thousands of dollars if you’re at that level but if you’re on a statewide level, tens of thousands or even less than that, it depends if you’re talking a local affiliate, the price per show is definitely less.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Is there a process to pitch let’s say the channels, is there a certain proposal that you have to submit or do you just call somebody and tell them that you have new content and ask if they are interested?

Deborah Robinson: You kind of want to know who is in charge and the people you would want to speak to you want your program director if you’re talking about local news or local programming and that’s the same way you want to is in charge of who is in charge of putting the programs on, who is buying so if you find program director you usually in the right place. If you are trying to pitch a new story you want to find the news director so those in the positions you want to go after one you are looking to pitch a story to a news channel which is different than pitching an entire program because at the network level they are buying, they buy your program in a series of thirteen of time so you are producing a series of thirteen show is and once you get to that level of producing shows at that level you are talking way more money but the interesting thing is when I did my show for five years out of Nashville one of the key things about doing that show was I was on a digital television station at that time so the fees weren’t as high, I didn’t get as much for that show when I did it on the digital affiliate but.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So digital means they broadcast on the Internet?

Deborah Robinson: If you have cable you can tell there are some stations on cable that are digital and some are not, now most of the stages are difficult, you don’t see that much anymore, if you go through sometimes you’ll see thirteen one.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What does that mean? 13.1 and digital? In plain English.

Deborah Robinson: That means they are broadcasting a digital signal which is usually a high-resolution higher resolution than your regular broadcasting might be doing locally but now everybody is digital, it’s hard to find a station that is not. They are very clear and the production is all done on digital cameras, now everything is digital so it’s less of an issue now but the key is.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you said it’s a digital Channel but they pay you less, why is that it should be more?

Deborah Robinson: It was less because the stations also when you are dealing with digital networks and cable networks you have so many networks to where it is hard for them to find their footing, if you go through your cable channels, there are channels that you never watch, some are barely on the air because the only way that they make money is by selling advertising and it’s hard to come by when you have a digital channel that nobody is watching so even the local stations are doing this, like we started syndicating the Denver interview show and at that time the only thing that we could get was a barter deal and if you look at your syndicated talk shows during the day, most of them are under barter agreements and the barter agreement simply says you have an hour show and you have thirteen minutes of advertising and that thirteen minutes of advertising we will split that advertising with you, we will give you six minutes and we keep six minutes and nobody pays any money, we won’t pay you for your show but we give you six minutes of advertising that you can sell so you can go find your sponsor and put that advertising in those shows and then we will find our sponsors and we can both make money because on a local level it is really hard for them to pay for programming like they used to and all of the syndicated talk shows are on mainly barter agreements whether it’s eighty twenty or sixty forty, there is some sort of bartering Bremen where the exchange advertising rather than dollars.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you still also try to get sponsors to sometimes if you have such a deal but you have 50% of the time to sell advertisement?

Deborah Robinson: Right, so a company like that that is when you get a distributor, like King world distributed the Oprah Winfrey show for all those years, King world actually Opera show was bought because it delivered the ratings and that was key so she was not on a barter system that shows like and then when she ushered in the Dr. Phil show he was also not on a barter system, the system paid for that show but shows like Montel, so the other shows that came in world barter systems to where was eighty twenty barter or whatever and the dollars didn’t exchange hands.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Usually the eighty is for the channel or for the content owner?

Deborah Robinson: It is usually for the channel. Because usually and it depends on how you negotiate, if you know that you place the show in different places and has good ratings you can negotiate better so that key.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And you as a content creator do you prefer to take a share from advertisement or is that a headache?

Deborah Robinson: I would prefer, it depends on how you are set up because distribution companies like King world have a lot of things in place where it is easy for them to find an advertiser because of advertiser than ghost about local station and they put them in all of the different shows, for me it is little bit harder so I would prefer that they took care of advertising and just pay the cost and bought the program straight out rather than having me go out and find advertising but in Nashville I basically did that, there is another way that you go if you don’t have your show bought by the station itself by the program director you can always go through buying time, you can actually buy time and if you buy time than you control all of your advertising you just pay the station and then you make all the money from your closing.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How do you do that?

Deborah Robinson: That’s pretty easy because every station has, if you call the advertising department of every station and you one of I paid programming, they have thirty minutes to an hour so you call up your local station and you say can I have your avails, if you don’t you can get an agency to do it, we do it as well so you ask for the avails and that is was available, the timeslots that are available and most times it’s late night or over night or Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon and they have prices on those for example.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you don’t buy the time within your show that you’re giving them, do you buy different times?

Deborah Robinson: You buy the block of time, you buy the thirty minutes after the game, you buy that time. So for example they have thirty minutes that comes on on a Saturday afternoon they have a show on a matinee show and after the matinee there thirty minutes they can sell so they may sell that thirty minute show depending on the station anywhere from thirty or $50-$1500, they sell that thirty minute show to content producers like us who go in and say okay and a lot of times what you see are infomercials so when you see infomercials in that slot those are paid programming slots but every now and then you will find companies who are real content producers who are buying that time as well to put on legitimate projects and not just infomercials.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So let’s say you bought this thirty minutes, how do you sell it?

Deborah Robinson: Then you go find the advertisers and one of the things that you do is I always look for people who are interested in the content so what is the show about? You go after people who are interested in reaching the people who are watching the show. So on a local level you start contacting in getting to your local people, reaching your local people who are already in advertising, look for people who are already advertising because at that point you know that they understand advertising and have a budget for it and you just need to convince them that you can deliver to them the audience that they are looking for, if they’re looking for women between 18 to 25 you might tell them that your talk show is about women and for women and we deal with the issues between 18 to 25 and this show in particular has, we are dealing with this and you share that with the sponsor so they know you can deliver the audience and they will pay for that audience at the site you get the spot.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Is there like any international company or agency that specializes without the you can share the name with?

Deborah Robinson: I don’t know anyone who specializes in particular, most of yours, you’ll find that most of your infomercials, there are companies that do infomercials and they go around the country buying up time like this but you were just have to find an ad agency to do it, and he ad agency in any city knows how to buy avails of paid programming so any ad agency would be able to do it for you.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How many people do you have in your company, how many full-time and how many outsourced?

Deborah Robinson: We outsource almost everybody, I have an assistant, there are three of us that are owners and the company, two attorneys, who own company with me, three of us as owners and then I have an assistant and I have an assistant in Little Rock and one in Las Vegas and everybody else we bring on for the project. And Little Rock my assistant in Little Rock is now hiring people for that project only, they work for the project they are 1099s and we use them for that project only so we don’t have to have the overhead of keeping people on board when we don’t have a project for them to work.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So you are legally backed up with your 2 attorneys.

Deborah Robinson: Yes and they are foreign, one is from Persia and one is from Germany.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And they are familiar with the US state law?

Deborah Robinson: Yes they are.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Okay so you are like into selling advertisement and creating content, how do you do that only with one assistant and you just outsource, how do you organize your time, how do you do that?

Deborah Robinson: Until I have a project it doesn’t matter that I have the people so once I get a project in the project is green lit with finances, now it’s time for me to bring the people in. So until we put our sponsors in place, our foundation sponsors there is no reason to have staff waiting or working on that and because my work is very personal I am only working on the projects that really mean something to me, we are not even looking for clients, it’s just our work, we are in process for raising money and finding money and once we find money for that project with then higher on the people that we need to make it happen.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you sell other people content as well if they will come to you and they will ask you to sell the content to a channel to a newspaper do you do that?

Deborah Robinson: It depends on what they want for me, if they commissioned it and they asked me to go out and get it then yes I would, I would go out and get it and deliver it to them as theirs. With my original idea I went out and got the content, if I want to station or someone to pick that up I try to keep the copyright so that I can repurpose it to do something else with it as well.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Share with us some techniques that you use when you research and interviewee?

Deborah Robinson: The first thing I do is try to get their ED K, their electronic press kit, get that and you can have the foundation for who the person is, once I have that I just do a Google search and start to find out information about them and that leads in different directions to who they are and what they are doing and who they are connected to and that kind of lays the foundation, I try to make sure that I read everything about them, one thing I do is when I do interviews I try to know the answer to every question before I ask the question because if I know the answer I know where everything is going and that allows me to listen even more intently as well, that allows me to let them lead me into directions into the next question because I am not having to sit in the interview and take up everything I already know some things and I am leading them to where I want the conversation to go. I started the research.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How long does the research project take?

Deborah Robinson: It could take anywhere from a couple of days, I’ve had to do research projects with a couple of days notice, now I’m working in doing the research for the six governors that are coming up next month and so I’ve already started that process I’m three weeks out from doing governor prior but I have started the research, that’s important, it depends sometimes when I’m doing the show I only have a couple of days to really go in and get what I need to share with everybody so I know who is coming up the next day and literally we may have a guest cancel and all of a sudden we have another author in and they have written another book and I may have to go over it overnight and figure out what’s what interview then the next day because that’s how fast sometimes things turn around.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How do you make the guest talk about very sensitive personal stuff?

Deborah Robinson: I usually start with me, I make sure that they are vulnerable and that means that I am vulnerable first, that means that I begin to share and open up and make them relax by talking about myself and talking about some things that we might have in common so that they can relax in our conversation and relaxing helps them to see that while I can trust her, I can trust her with what I need to talk about and so when I ask a personal question it is not coming out of the cold that is coming out of a warm place because we have been talking either before the show or during the break I have allowed the atmosphere to be one of calm because if you are uptight and you are sitting there and quiet before the interview than they are going to be quiet so what I tried to do is I try to relax them by making small talk and allowing them to sort of get relaxed and when they get relax that is how I lead into the questions that are more revealing and one of the interesting things that I do is my interview style is a little different because I believe in imposing on the personal space of the person I’m interviewing, that can be a little uncomfortable in the beginning so especially for my show what we do is return the chairs directly toward each other because I want to sit face-to-face with the person I’m talking to rather than side-by-side where I’m having to turn my head to talk to them, face-to-face allows you to really get up close and personal and when you’re that up close and personal you start to see through people and when you start to see through people they know that you see their heart and who they are and they can also see who you are and that is uncomfortable in the beginning for people who are not used to somebody sitting close to them and looking them dead in the eye and sharing and talking but that is the strategy I use to break the ice and let them know that I am approachable and I want in on their space because the reason I brought them to the interview was because I felt they had something to offer people that could help them live their lives better. That is what I want to pull out of it and bring out and most times that is something intimate or secret or deep and to get that deep I have to allow them to feel comfortable so I get in their space.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You start with general questions at the beginning and then you go deep personally like that?

Deborah Robinson: Yes I start general if we have the time and that’s why I like long format shows, I like taking that time to get to the place of intimacy and if we don’t have to use the information at the beginning we don’t have to but the key is that I am taking the time to really get in there and get them to trust me throughout the process and then they open up and they start sharing and then when it’s time to ask that sensitive question or that intimate question I don’t hesitate to ask it, I ask it and they realize that I really want an answer and it’s not an aside question, it’s an intimate question and we need the answer because the intention of the interview is very important when I go and I try to tell them what my intention is, my intention is to use your story to use what is happened to you to cause others to be healed delivered set free to cause others to have a better life, what has happened to you, what you’ve gone through people can learn from it and if you will be open to sharing your realize that whatever that was that happened to you that you are here to share about can really help others and it will be worth it, it will show the what you went through was worth it for a reason when they realize that is my intention they are more open to share because we are trying to help other people not to embarrass them or to shame them but no more shame it’s about helping other people so they don’t have to go through the same thing.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What is your focus is it like politics or religion our business, what area do you like the most?

Deborah Robinson: All of that I love all of it, I love politics and I think the key.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Because it sells better or because you love it?

Deborah Robinson: I love politics but what I realized is that everything is spiritual and that is the key to me for me and that is where my interviews always end up because you can sit with a politician and you can talk surface and you will never get deep but the only way to get deep is to go personal integral spiritual and when you go into that space that is when people begin to share and open up so I love politics and I love when I can take a politician or political interview to a deeper place because all of us, I interviewed Neil Donald Walsh are you familiar with them? He has a trilogy of books called conversations with God and he made a point that was so perfect, he said we don’t have a political problem or an economic problem, we have a spiritual problem and we can get to the issues of the spirit and we can take care of everything else so if we can get to the issues of why we treat each other the way we do, the humanity of us all, if we can deal with those issues we can stop wars, we can s stop all of the political infighting because we all realize that we all want the same thing. We all want what is good for humanity and for our families and we can deal at that level that is when everything will become better but everybody is not level to deal on the spiritual level that we have a spiritual problem not an economic problem or political problem.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: And do you like more to record interviews or do you do like certain videos or reports for the news?

Deborah Robinson: I do a lot of stuff here where there are conventions that go on so I go and cover different conventions and then I take that and I use that on the ABC affiliate here in Las Vegas so I do a lot of lifestyle stuff because this is an entertainment type of city so that is the lifestyle stuff that I do for Las Vegas but the other interviews that I do right now I try to stay in the area of politics and religion because that is where I flourish and that is where like to be.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: No gambling?

Deborah Robinson: I don’t gamble.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: But you don’t cover the gambling stuff?

Deborah Robinson: Though I don’t, we were producing a show on addiction now that is a whole different thing if we can cover it from the addiction perspective and yes that is a story but just to cover a story about people going out to gamble that doesn’t have any significance to me unless we can get to why they are there gambling, how it has affected their lives and their families, we can get to the deeper issues of what it means when they come out here when they gamble or what you do here in Las Vegas because it stays here that is more important to me than just a gamble.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: When you create like a TV show based on interviews how many staff do you require for that and do you like to shoot it with audience over that audience?

Deborah Robinson: I like, my show was with an audience and now we are doing a live show with an audience but I like I find that when I am one-on-one with somebody and there is nobody else but the staff in their I get better interviews, I did a series in Nashville called at home with Deborah where I brought the guest to my home and those were the most intimate interviews, they were really able to talk about things that were intimate to them, that is more important than sometimes when you have an audience people place of the audience so you get a different feel, you always want to be up, when you have an audience you always want to be out you can literally go in and my interviews are always about going in so when I am able to record an interview one-on-one with someone and the only people in the room are the cameramen and us, that is a more rewarding thing to me than doing the audience because the audience you have to play to it and you just don’t go as deep as you want.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You feel it’s less intense, so how many people, how many cameramen?

Deborah Robinson: Usually if we do a one-on-one like that we would have three cameras but you don’t have to have three camera people, that’s the interesting thing about shooting like that you can have two camera operators and three cameras, you want to make sure someone who is doing guest relations was literally just taking care of the guest because you want to feel the guests catered to and taken care of, it is always important that you have somebody and that is all they do, not someone who’s doing something else, the moment the guest is on the way this person is in contact with them, there on the phone with them and meet them at the door, they provide for them whatever they need, taking care of that person so you always want to make sure you have someone doing guest relations for you and that helps the guests to relax and feel good so you have two camera people at least and an overall production manager who is overseeing all of the production your camera people can also be in charge of helping the production, setting up the lights and doing all that because when you’re on a small shoot you don’t need that many people, two camera people and a production manager and then you always want to have producer, producer there and then the interviewer and you have somebody handling guest relations so it could be a very small staff.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: So 5 to 6?

Deborah Robinson: yes.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How much does it cost per interview with the staff a much does it cost?

Deborah Robinson: If you break it down per interview we are probably at about five thousand dollars and interview and that is not if we are taking care of the guests, usually we don’t pay guests but there are things that you do for guests that increase your budget where you put them up and all that stuff if you have to put them up forget them a limo, things like that but increase your budget but overall you could do it at about five thousand dollars.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you only focus off-line because it has more value however and less flexibility in terms of contacting the guest, have you tried doing some things online like what we’re doing now?

Deborah Robinson: That is my next frontier actually that is what I’m doing now, when I was with I like TV, we were in millions of households internationally, we had a central viewership of about forty million, that was quite a lot and then when I started doing local television in Nashville it went down to 1.5 to 3,000,000 people, that is not a lot but what is happening with today’s time is is changing, people don’t watch television the way they used to watch television, you will have a television show like the Oprah Winfrey show when it was in its prime it was only heading 5.6 or seven ratings Max, that is only seven million people, if you go online now you have people who barely know what they are doing and they getting seven million viewers so now everything is changing so television is not necessarily the place where it is best to be, it is about being in the space where you have international global possibilities and that is Internet access and that is where I am building the local show for Internet rather than television, television becomes much more expensive than Internet now and it works, Internet works better, everybody is watching television, watching their smart phones and you have individuals, people are doing who want the content that you have and that is how you get out to millions of viewers and that is how you capture them and eventually start to charge them and they begin to pay for it because you provided value they can get anywhere else, the key is that the Internet is catching up to television the way that it is financed, the Internet is the platform to be right now.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: But don’t you think like the Internet usually takes time and is not like when you have a show on the TV people wait for it and watch it at certain point one of his live or certain time while the Internet may be they get ten million but it takes time, so that will reduce maybe the profit that you make from the advertisers of the sponsors because usually they need a certain number of people at the same time and this is where you can make more money from the ads?

Deborah Robinson: It is a different platform, what’s happening is advertisers don’t know how to operate in the space just yet of the Internet because you have to wait a long time for you to actually get the viewers but you get so many more viewers and over time it works out so I think they are going to get it, it’s just going to be a matter of how to charge for it and having space, even the space like you to that is now paying producers that is a good space to be in as well.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How to get featured in the media? What is the strategy that you recommend for the people who want to be featured in the media?

Deborah Robinson: The strategy is to have some relevant content, what is it that you want to be featured for and so say if you have a business, it doesn’t matter what the business does, you are now going to get a free feature by just having a business, what you need to do is connect your business with what is going on, what is trending right now, check and see what people are talking about online, check your news channel to see what are the stories, what are they doing stories on right now, if something big happens in the news see if you can find a way to connect to it, for example if you have, if something happens to somebody, say a new story covers this really cute story of a child losing their cat, as a company why don’t you go into that story by doing something for that child or by giving them another cat that you get news coverage from, something that connects you to the story so you can send out a press release and say that this is what we are doing and this is who we are, we are doing this because this was tragic and we want to make this person feel better, so do it from a genuine place but find a place for yourself within the story with things that are happening that are being covered in the news because that is what the news is covering right now, that means they already have a reporter on it, sometimes it’s really hard to take a reporter and put them on a new story but you are not covering because you are like okay well you have to pay for it, so the news director on the assignment desk is like well I’m going to put them on a story that we have been working on now for days because that story is already developing and it allows us to keep it going, for example it depends on what happens and this is how I’ve used the media to get coverage on the things that I’m working on, I was recently in Memphis where I was using my camera to record the police arresting somebody for drugs and when they saw me pull out my camera it looks like a professional camera but that didn’t matter, the police officer immediately told me to put my camera up but I know my First Amendment rights so I immediately told him Sir I’m site but I have the right to record you conducting business on public property and he didn’t like that but it’s not just as a journalist that I have that right, we have the First Amendment right of citizens so I continued to record and it escalated to the point of where they told me that if I continued that they were going to arrest me and I knew that they were violating my first and rights but at that moment I didn’t really want to go to jail so what I did was after I left there I started doing the research on the Memphis Police Department to see why, what is in their culture that they would think that it’s okay to treat people the way they treated me for no reason so in doing that research I found that it was a problem in that area and not only that, the police chief had already given out a memo to the police to say they have no right to stop people from recording so knowing that what I did was I released a press release into the Memphis media and share the experience, I gave them the video and literally my story led the news for three days, every station, I did Skype interviews and all of that, I didn’t have anything to sell the whole thing was trying to get people to understand that they are First Amendment rights, I simply knew my right to present to them the story, here is a story the police are at it again, we have rights and people need to understand their rights and here is a video to show that they were violating my First Amendment rights and we stayed in the news for three weeks, I was invited back to Memphis to work with an organization that is on the ground there trying to get better relations with the police department so it is about finding and realizing what is the story here, how can I put myself in the story to get the exposure that we need?

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You worked for Obama for America two thousand and twelve, what did you learn from that campaign?

Deborah Robinson: That was an interesting thing, I worked with the media office and I did press releases and wrote for the website and I handled the national press and Obama came to town but it was when we all had to get out on the street and see what running the campaign was really about, it was on the street that I realized that it was such a machine and organize machine, I learned lessons on how to organize, they were so organize were every neighborhood, whenever they put their precinct, that neighborhood that they canvassed, it was very strategic, one neighborhood did not go up on another neighborhood and I knew people from certain neighborhoods and I said I could go and help in the neighborhood and they said no you have to say in your neighborhood because we are counting and making sure that we can reach our goals here and let the people in that neighborhood reach that neighborhood, everything was so organized so I can definitely see how they were able to do how we were able to do what we did, of course we won Nevada and that was the key there and they were able to do it because the organization and it was very good organization.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you have a service that you help your clients get featured in the media?

Deborah Robinson: No I don’t not at this time, I used to do more client work but right now I have quite a few projects that we are working on that don’t involve the client work but no I don’t, I don’t have a service I’m sorry.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the steps that like so many now people on the Internet are having their Internet shows, how can they take those shows to the TV? What should they do? Do you see just that they keep it on the Internet?

Deborah Robinson: I do see just they keep it on the Internet, it’s the future of television, I go to conferences, broadcasting conferences and we used to call the Internet the computer a second screen but that is so changing, the computer is no longer second screen it is the first screen and it is that individual attention so television is changing, the big boys are really struggling to figure out how to save themselves because people are not watching the tube the way they used to, of course you have televisions that with the Internet on them because they are trying to keep that relevant but that still means they are not watching cable and television the way they used to so I suggest if you stay where you are, build your brand and build your following and build your people and get yourself into the millions and millions of hits in likes and followers and then if you choose to go into television that is how you will be able to make the transition because what televisions don’t want to do is they don’t want to make you, they are not going to make you as a brand, they are picking up people who already have followings, that is the same we get your book published, you have to have your own following, already so when you build that, build that online, get people loving what you do, they like your brand, they are there with you, they are watching you and then you can go to a television station and you can say listen, I have twelve million hits on my YouTube channel a month, that means something to them, that means that you can bring those people with you on a national level so that is the key, stay where you are, grow it where you are, because the television channels are only looking for people who are proven, while ready have a message, it is hard for them to make you, they are not going to make an brand you they are going to pick you up or you are and they are looking for people who already have a following bring that following with them.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Do you think that TV is going to be all on demand like people just selects, there is nothing like all the time and broadcasting you just select like what you want on YouTube or video?

Deborah Robinson: It is probably going to go that way, I’m not sure how long it is going to take but it is really hard, people are not sitting down at 8 o’clock to watch a show anymore, they are watching an online and the networks see that because they are now offering their programs only to their subscribers, only if you have certain cable providers, you can watch their content online, they are offering an online now because they realize that people are not watching television the same way anymore, it is an industry that is trying to save itself and it is going to be hard to do that because things are changing rapidly.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Are you with the free model of providing the content for free and then finding sponsors to make money from it or are you with the membership model which is like you are charging with no advertisement like a monthly fee?

Deborah Robinson: I am with sponsors, I would love to the on the other side but it is hard because there is so much content out there that people can get for free so it is hard to make them pay for your content because they can get it free, even everybody that you interview, they can go online, Google that person and find a lot of free information on that person so it is really hard to get people to pay individually for content especially online so there was a transition that was made that I’m really impressed with, so gosh what is his name? I just forgot his name [editor’s note: she is talking about Glenn Beck], he went from cable television and now he has the blaze, he went from cable television to a subscription television channel, she launched with millions of subscriptions, subscribers at twenty dollars a month, that was major what he did, and I’ve been watching him and seeing how is progressing, he literally built a full studio and everything when he was fired from Fox that he was with, he then went and created police TV and with blaze TV now it’s a subscription and he has his own studio and he is making it work because what he talks about, people aren’t getting anywhere else because he is very out there, very right wing, he has content that they can’t get anywhere else and they are willing to pay to listen to so he is creating not just his own content, he is creating other people that he also brings forward but he managed to do it and that was a good thing.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: You authored a certain number of books, tell us more about it and are you self-publishing or publishing and you are also in the process of writing two books tell us about it?

Deborah Robinson: Yes, there are so many people who want to write and they are like I want to read a book and can I find an agent and how do I find an agent and they’ve written a book and they can’t find an agent so the book is just sitting there, times have so changed, it is amazing how times have changed, you do not need, you do not have to have an agent anymore, you don’t have to have an major publisher, the key is to get your stuff out there because major publishers are looking for proven people and proven work so if you do self published, that means that you can now begin to sell your book and make money and show a larger publisher that you can do it, of course there is a benefit to having a larger publisher, that publisher put some money behind your project and they put money behind it and that can mean the difference between New York Times bestseller and sitting on your desk so that is important but you also have to realize what comes with the major publisher, a major publisher all they are really doing is giving you a loan, they are giving you a loan for your book, they give you in advance of fifty thousand dollars or hundred thousand dollars and then they spend the rest of the money on marketing and all of that and they spend that money so that when money starts to be made from your book the first people paid back is your publishing company, they recoup all of those benefits so you may never see any more money because they may never make a million dollars from your book but you got your upfront advance and that was good so basically it is really all of your money because the only money being made is what you’re using but they are advancing it to you so that is good there is value in that and large publishing companies also know the game a publishing they can get your book in major bookstores so there are definitely benefits.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: For credibility, yes.

Deborah Robinson: Lots of benefits but if you are just sitting waiting on an agent, I suggest that you self publish, there are so many programs out here that will allow you to do it and do it with ease, all of my books, I call them self published but I own the publishing company and we also publish additional things as well, it started with me doing my own book and remember I am in the media so media is what I do and I just realized that I wanted to write a book and it wasn’t necessary for me to find to sit and wait and sit on the book and wait on the publisher to pick it up, I self publish the book and I remember even to this day I remember what it felt like to have that first-person online buy my book, it was amazing to have that feeling, so just get out here and self publish, my first book was called journey to purpose, I published it since then, I have a second edition out now, you can get them Amazon.com, and then from there I started ghostwriting, I ghost wrote another book and we also publish that book, so from there I have five books that I’ve done and I currently ghostwrite another book and I’m still working on to others that are in the making and both of them actually started out as ghostwriting projects but now I am slowly writing the myself.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How much do you charge for ghostwriting?

Deborah Robinson: It depends on what I have to do, if the person comes to the table and they really are a writer and they know what they are doing and all I’m doing is taking their information and putting it in story form and giving it and then publishing it or giving it to them that is a lesser price, we might be at about ten thousand dollars for that price and then I also share in the copyright because that is still my intellectual property so I share copyright but if the author really doesn’t know how to write a book and all they are doing is I’m doing the interview and telling their story and I’m really pulling the story together at that process it is up to fifty or sixty thousand it depends on how much involvement I need to give to the project and how much that person’s bring to the table.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How do you rate efficiently ?

Deborah Robinson: well, I start with research, I found that if I have enough information on topic that I can write, when I get writer’s block it’s when I don’t have enough information, if I get enough information I can write and make it flow and make it we from one place to another, you just make sure that you have your points and then you segue them and we’ve been together, it’s actually pretty easy for me to write but I also know that for me to write I totally have to totally do nothing but that so that is why I have books that I’m working on because until I am able to sit and spend the time with that project that is the key, I have to keep rolling in really right effectively and tell the story correctly I have to fully be working on that.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: How is your daily routine in terms of work and life?

Deborah Robinson: Because I am single with no children I literally work when I’m not asleep that is all I do and I actually love it, it is not something, it’s not work to me, it’s my calling and what I’m feeling like I’m put on this earth to do, I don’t find lots of pleasure or passion or excitement doing anything else, outside of the media right now I am working with different companies to do raise money for their project the way we raise money for the show so I have one of those projects where we do morning calls, we are on the twenty-seventh day-to-day out of forty days, two calls a day at 5 AM and 4 PM, for the last twenty-eight days I do that call at 5 AM and then I’m on it again at four so I am doing that sort of schedule, that means that I need to get to sleep early, usually I’m a night person, I’m creative overnight, my days are usually spent dealing with finances and then at night I get creative, I write, I plan, I do all of that but every night, never fail I make a list of the things I need to do the next day, that is my thing that keeps me on track is the night before while I am creative, while I am thinking of all the things I need to do, I make that list and the next day I don’t really have to think about I just need to do it.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: What are the habits that you are trying to develop to stay efficient?

Deborah Robinson: If I could work out more, I used to be a cheerleader and a gymnast, I also taught as an instructor, and so I was used to being active because it was what I did but now being that I am not doing any of those things it is really hard for me to stay active so I really need to be disciplined and create the habit of working out and being more active physically everyday.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Who is your number one mentor?

Deborah Robinson: My number one mentor is a guy that is unknown, he actually was my first investor for my show in Nashville and since then he has, he is a quiet soul who doesn’t say much but every day he reminds me of what is important, the scramble that I’m in is important for me to take care of myself and relax and enjoy the journey so he gives me the spiritual grounding to keep going so that is personal to me and he is definitely a mentor on my every day, the things that I do every day, I have to slow down sometimes and just listen and it is not always pleasant to listen because he lives his life the way he is telling me to live it and that is with no worries and no stress, he literally has mastered that and to see somebody with that much come I’m like will that is not my life and he is saying it doesn’t matter that is not your life what matters is that it matters that you come yourself, that you take care of the spiritual things of life so he is my mentor.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: But investors in the media, do people specialize, is there a special group that invests in the media?

Deborah Robinson: You would probably need to find somebody who knows and who is into entertainment, it is hard for the traditional investor to understand what media does what is all about how we make money how we can make money, it is hard for them to see that because most traditional investors are used to investing in the brick and mortar, here is the building, we know that when we sell 10 cups of coffee we know how much we make, we know our profit margin which is quite different from media work, it is a little bit harder for them to see so you need to find people who are open and can understand and know media and entertainment is good, those people who invest entertainment a really good for media.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Top three apps that use on your phone?

Deborah Robinson: The top three apps on my phone – I tried to remember that, of course you have Gmail, did I make some notes on that? Gosh, the absent my phone, I don’t even remember what I use on my phone every day, I don’t know, I just use email, I don’t use a whole lot of the stuff on my phone every day.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: I just asked to see maybe from a media perspective if you have absent you prefer.

Deborah Robinson: Let me see what do I have my phone? That is interesting, I’m looking here, I don’t know, that is interesting.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Top three favorite books?

Deborah Robinson: I will have to go with the trilogy I talked about earlier from Neil Donald Walsh, conversations with God changed my life and the way I look at everything around me basically I would say those are my top three books.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: All right, what makes you really happy?

Deborah Robinson: Doing what I do, the media work, when I started researching it and really digging into something to find out what really happened what is truly behind it I am in bliss, I could do a twenty-four hours a day without even eating, that is what I love and that is when I know that is part of my DNA what I’m here to do so that really makes me happy and there is literally nothing else that makes me as happy as just doing my media work, being able to do the research and to find out things and discover things and share those things with the world.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Top three people you are inspired by?

Deborah Robinson: Top three, Bill Clinton, Celine Dion, I know these are probably not typical and Michael Jordan. As a my top three, Michael Jordan because every time it matters when he is up against the wall and has to score point he does, he brings it forward, he performs every time and that is what is so inspiring to me to see somebody who never fails who has so much discipline that they have worked their way to a place of perfection that when there is one second left on the clock he knows and everybody knows if you get Michael Jordan the ball that he is going to hit it, that is the kind of confidence that I admire and I know he worked to get there so that is why he inspires me.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Why Bill Clinton and not Obama?

Deborah Robinson: Bill Clinton of course I’m inspired by Obama but Bill Clinton because he has such stick to-itness, is that a word? When Bill Clinton said I did not have sexual relationships with that woman, and then the next day he had the common face the public, he had to realize that he lied, for somebody to every day, this is why I am inspired by him, because it doesn’t matter, he stands in front of you every day he shows up, and there are so many times when things happen to us that we are embarrassed by or ashamed of we want to go and hide in the closet and never come out again, but Bill Clinton stands strong the matter what he has gone through, he continues to simply stand in himself and not be ashamed of it, that is admirable to be, I want to grow that kind of skin that no matter what people say about me I can stand and face everybody the next day, that is what impresses me about him.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Last question, how can people contact you?

Deborah Robinson: People can contact me, through and see, my media management company and our number is 800-949-7935, 800-949-7935.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Thank you so much Deborah, this is I think the longest interview or the second-longest interview that I have ever done on the show.

Deborah Robinson: I’m so sorry am pretty talkative.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Because the information is very interesting that is why, like I really that is why we were on that time. Thank you so much.

Deborah Robinson: Thank you so very much for having me.

Ahmed Al Kiremli: Thanks everyone be efficient and stay efficient and see you soon with another leading expert.

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