Why Has It Gone Wrong?

Why Has It Gone Wrong?

In place of our usual editorial piece this week, I wanted to highlight a debate that has been going on in the PB Watercooler discussion forum this past fortnight. It’s an extremely interesting thread from experienced freelancers within the TV industry discussing how working life is now very different than in the past. And not always for the better.

Below are some extracts to give you a taster but please take a look at the Watercooler for the entire thread. It’s well worth a read, particularly for our less experienced members…

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Amateur Wage as a Professional Slave?

Amateur Wage as a Professional Slave?

The ongoing discussion on our Watercooler forum headed ‘Camera Person with Own Kit: £100’ gets to the heart of the worries of thousands of TV freelancers. At first reading, it looks as if the debate is about what is a fair rate for the job. In fact, the real subject is whether the team offering the work, and the people who apply to do it, are working within a professional industry, or one for amateur enthusiasts.

Let us be in no doubt that there is a professional television industry. A 2005 Film Council study noted that the UK’s total TV turnover was £13.4 billion in the previous year, and it has grown over the last four years. Skillset estimates that there are some 75,000 people whose livelihoods directly depend on that turnover for their income, which probably includes you and me.

Film and television-making is not a monopoly controlled by the professionals, any more than baking is controlled by Rank Hovis McDougall. You can bake cakes at home, or to sell at your tea shop but if you were employed to make Mr Kipling’s French Fancies, you would not expect to bake them in your home oven, and you would expect to be paid a sustainable rate in return for your employers’ intention to make a profit from them.

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