There is no magic day for issuing a press release. The reason for that is this: if there was a “best” day, it would quickly become the worst day, because insiders would tell their friends and colleagues, and more press releases would be published on that day, increasing competition for journalists’ attention. For example, if Tuesday was the “magic day” in the industry, every publicist would soon learn that, and you’d see a huge spike in volume on that day, which would overwhelm journalists, making Tuesday the most competitive day to issue press releases.
You find a lot of publicly-traded companies as well as the U.S. government issuing bad news after 5PM on Friday. But guess what? Every Monday morning, those stories are right there on the front pages, so they’re not fooling anybody. Journalists are paying attention every day of the week. At eReleases, we issue press releases Monday through Friday, because we find that most journalists are working a Monday through Friday schedule. Therefore, it’s most efficient to work on a Monday through Friday basis.
On the weekends and overnight, you’re dealing with a skeleton crew of media, and they’re going to be hyper-responsive to very important news and leave all other news for the regular shift. Our clients’ news, for the most part, is not breaking news. In short, there is no magic day to issue your press release.
Regarding time of distribution, eReleases schedules its press releases for morning distribution. We have no facts to justify our position but we believe it makes sense to have your news in the inbox of subscribing journalists when they sit down for that first cup of coffee in the morning.