VNRs go abroad (sometimes).

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Television's Bastille has been stormed and the cry of deregulation is being heard 'round the world.

While the spotlight is on Eastern Europe, video revolutionaries are creating a new order in the West.

Four commercial networks have been added to the dial in France. In Italy, the growth of private TV is as chaotic as the train schedules. Satellite dishes are sprouting on the damp roofs of Britain as the country looks toward Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV, that is).

For global communicators who use video news releases (VNRs), the changes portend a wealth of opportunities. But in any language, the watchword remains caution.

European TV these days "is more confusing than anyone in American public relations who knows Europe would even presume it to be at its worst," warns Larry Moskowitz, president of Medialink, the largest satellite distributor of VNRs in the US.

Moskowitz, whose company is looking to expand into Europe, recently returned from visits to a half-dozen countries.

"We're on the verge of a wealth of opportunities for VNRs," he believes, "but it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of patience."

The industry is in its infancy, embryonic, or perhaps best characterized as amoebic," confirms David Tune, managing director of Newsflash, a European VNR pioneer.

Small news budgets and empty news holes are two factors working in favor of VNRs in Europe.

As in the US, European TV reporters are reluctant to admit they use VNRs, but they do.

"We consider them a PR tool," explains Stephen Strohe, US correspondent for the trans-border network Satellite One. "It's when we can't get the pictures by any other means, then we use them as a fallback."

Government-owned stations are a tougher nut to crack. On German Radio & TV, anything that smacks of commercialism is verboten. "When I interviewed the secretary of transportation, he talked about the high standards of Mercedes and my editors refused to broadcast that because it sounded like an endorsement," recalls Wolf von Lojen, the network's Washington, D.C. bureau chief.

On the other hand, Danish TV wants to install a Medialink printer to receive VNR advisories.

The traditional structure of European TV acts as both an incentive and an impediment to the use of VNRs. National networks trade material several times each day through a satellite exchange called Eurovision, administered by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Some of the upstart stations are locked out of that feed, making them video hungry.

Radio/TV Luxembourg is one example. Distributed primarily by cable in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, it can't join Eurovision. "They're dying for good pix," says Medialink's Moskowitz.

The good news is that if two Eurovision members request a particular story-and VNRs fall under the rubric-it gets on the feed to all the members.

The bad news is that if it's not on Eurovision, a VNR can be expensive to distribute. That's because in much of Europe satellite "downlinking" is a jealously guarded government perk.

The local combination Post office and Telephone Company (PTT) scoops in the signals, then distributes them by land line to the broadcasters, charging a bundle in the process.

What goes up, must come down. But in Europe, it pays when it lands.

If you are a VNR distributor in the US, you can buy a half hour of satellite time for a couple of hundred dollars and reach almost 800 TV stations. In Europe, not only does it cost to "uplink" the feed, but there's a charge in each country in which it is recorded. Someone has to foot the bill, and it's unlikely the broadcaster is going to pay to take in your VNR.

"It can be an expensive proposition. That makes it important for the PR company to contact each broadcaster in advance and determine exactly who wants it," according to Edward Helfer, director of product development at Worldwide Television News, a global television news distributor.

And woe to those who try to quantify usage. In the US, the method of tallying stations that run a particular VNR is, at best, inefficient; it's a nightmare abroad.

"A monitoring system overseas just doesn't exist yet," says Medialink's Moskowitz.

"There's little or no possibility of establishing where and when a piece is used," adds Tune of Newsflash.

"Monitoring is the single biggest problem," echoes Helfer.

The lone dissenting voice comes from VisNews, WTN's primary competitor.

"Our international usage reports are far more accurate than those in the US," reports Marcy Simon, who heads the company's stateside VNR production ann. For US $25,000, she says, the company will add a VNR to the end of its daily global newsfeed to 400 broadcasters in 89 countries.

Simon claims that "someone at each station tells us if they used the VNR and provides us with an aircheck."

That raises eyebrows among skeptical producers who have dealt with TV newsrooms-domestic or foreign. But VisNews is having success with clients like Universal Studios, which recently distributed a VNR on the aftermath of its fire.

Average pickup? "That's hard to say," reports Simon. When pushed, she says "three to four countries," which tends to contradict her previous statement.

Newsflash and a few others are having good success in Britain and more limited pickup on the continent with carefully targeted spots. Distribution is primarily by land line or hard copy. Their method of notification: They work the phones.

On the other side of the world, meanwhile, Masahide Matsuoka of Fuji TV reports that VNRs are becoming commonplace" in his country.

And things can only get better. Commercial networks are likely to form continent-wide news exchanges which will aid in VNR distribution, while the EBU is considering a proposal to deregulate satellite access.

For those hardy souls willing to blaze the way, some tips:

* Avoid narration-Even if the language is right, foreign broadcasts don't want your guy's voice;

* No finished stories-Provide Broll only, since news style varies dramatically between countries;

* Edit loosely-News stories, and thus individual shots, are generally much longer abroad, so give them plenty to work with;

* Include multilingual soundbites-one or two for each of the countries targeted;

* Don't rule out satellites, but also consider other distribution methods:

* Hand out hard copies at news conferences;

* Target individual stations and ship cassettes (Newsflash is publishing a directory of European TV in early 1991);

* Urge interested stations to ask for a Eurovision feed-it only takes two requests;

* Pitch the VNR to WTN and VisNews editors (not VNR distribution departments) as a news story;

* Approach the US news bureaus of foreign TV channels.

One word of warning: Beware of Distributors Bearing Inflated Usage Claims.

"If you reach just one station in a country like Japan, you'll get eight to 10 million viewers," boasted one distributor interviewed for this article.

Sounds impressive, unless you know that Japan's top-rated news program, on Fuji TV, has an audience of less than four million.

Well," the distributor shot back, if you want to quibble."

Despite the hurdles, the future of global VNRs is bullish. But before plunging in, research is in order.

And perhaps a little quibbling.

Larry Pintak is a partner in Pintak/Brown International, a Washington, D.C.-based media relations and video production firm.