Probably from the 70s or earlier. Paperback in English.

Space craft with a new drive that should be able to travel to other planets in  solar system almost instantly, is over budget and behind schedule. Corporate head office assigns a new brash PR flunky type to take over and get the project on schedule. [He *may* have been there to secretly shut it down. Too Expensive] This is *not* a choice assignment. But he is determined to make the best of it.

Since the drive *does* work. He orders a a test flight (in spite all the scientist/techs in the crew trying to tell him they haven't quite worked out some major bugs in the drive/control systems) with a camera crew in board to record the results.

When activated the ship jumps, but *NOT* to Venus/Mars(?) as expected, but to another star.... And the scientist/techs are not quite sure which one it is, or how to get back...

But they still have communications with Earth. So the PR flunky organizes the camera crew, who were supposed to record the planetary jump results, to broadcast a "travelogue type, wow look what we found, what will we find next" 1 hr TV show.

I am pretty sure they do *NOT* tell people they are lost on the TV show. Meanwhile behind the scenes, the PR flunky is contacting corporate to hire more scientist/astronomers to get involved with finding out where they are and how to fix the drive controls.

They then proceed to jump to several different stars, while the scientist/techs continue to try to figure out how to control the jumps. Meanwhile they continue to broadcast the 1 hr TV show which become more campy. "oh no, This planet looks dangerous, how will we survive/overcome the problem. Tune in to our next episode to find out."

The Show is a HUGE success back home, with the Add revenue paying for the over budget expenses many times over.

At one point the PR flunky gets stranded with a female (Crew member? Assistant?) on a planet by themselves, when the ship has to jump before they can return.  Figuring they will be stuck there forever, they become romantically involved.

Eventually the scientist/tech figure out how to control the jumps, and return to rescue them, and then jump back to Earth. Where the PR flunky can get whatever he wants from Corporate. (He was more or less the "star" of the show)

The characters where very stereotypical. The infatuated wide-eyed clueless female, the nerdy bumbling scientist, the adventurous camera crew, the ambitious take charge I know what I am doing PR flunky.