"Public service announcements, or PSA's, are short messages produced on film/ video and given to radio and television stations. Generally, PSA's are sent as ready-to-air audio or video tapes, although radio stations (especially community or public stations, such as campus radio or National Public Radio affiliates) sometimes prefer a script that their announcers can read live on the air. They can be done very simply with a single actor reading or performing a message, or they can be elaborate, slickly-produced productions with music, dramatic storylines, and sound or visual effects.
Broadcast media -- radio and television -- are required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to serve "in the public interest." Most stations use PSA's as one of the ways they meet this requirement. While they aren't required to donate a fixed percentage of air time per day to PSA's, stations do have to state in their licensing and renewal applications how much air time they plan to devote to PSA's. Most stations donate about a third of their commercial spots to non-commercial causes; in other words, if a station has 18 minutes of commercials in a given hour, six minutes of that will probably be devoted to PSA's."
PSA's are generally inexpensive. Since the airtime is donated, your only cost is production. If you keep to a tight budget, you can make PSA's very cheaply.
Most stations will allow you to include a telephone number for more information in your PSA.
PSA's tend to be really effective at encouraging the audience to do something -- for example, call a phone number for more information, use condoms, or have your pet spayed or neutered.
PSA's can raise awareness of your issue.
Characteristically PSA's are used to raise awareness about health and safety. A typical PSA is part of a campaign to raise awareness, inform or educate the masses about an issue in a simple way. (In the US) this can often include topics about obesity or compulsive gambling. However, it isn't just health and safety covered these days as the topics used has expanded over time and issues have become more apparent.
PSA's sometimes employ celeb status to get a message across.
Animal PSAs encourage adoption instead of buying new pets.
Keeping green and protecting the Earth.
Religious organisations produce PSAs about family values etc.
The military produces PSAs to recruit enlistees.
Some television shows featuring very special episodes made PSAs after the episodes. For example, Law & Order:SVU talked about child abduction so it had a PSA about child abduction.
Another example is, Law & Order talked about drunk driving so it had a PSA about drunk driving.
Some television PSAs have topics such as on not watching so much T.V., or not taking fictional shows literally, or T.V., movie, or video game ratings.
The Ad Council has a huge collection of PSA examples.
"In the United States a public service announcement(PSA) is defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a formal and detailed manner. A PSA is "any announcement (including network) for which no charge is made and which promotes programs, activities, or services of federal, state, or local governments (e.g., recruiting, sale of bonds, etc.) or the programs, activities or services of non-profit organizations (e.g., United Way, Red Cross blood donations, etc.) and other announcements regarded as serving community interests, excluding time signals, routine weather announcements and promotional announcements.""
How to write a PSA
And here.
"A public service announcement typically heralds a community event, usually, but not always, for a non-profit organization. Commercial groups can also announce non-profit events or services. If you just want a pre-event plug, the community calendar is where you should direct your PSA. Many local newspapers also have community calendars so PSA’s are not limited to electronic media."
Some examples of PSA
And an example of a spoof
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