Royston Mayoh Archives | ProductionBase Community

PB Live Careers Forum

Our Live Careers forum attracted a whole range of queries. Thanks to everyone that joined in – here are the responses so far!

The Panel

Richard Nash

Richard has over 20 years experience in documentaries & factual entertainment for UK and international broadcasters. Career highlights include The Secret Millionaire, Come Dine With Me, World’s Strictest Parents, River Cottage, Jamie’s Great Britain and Fabulous Baker Brothers.

Toral Dixit

Toral is an experienced PD self-shooting on DSR / EX3 / XF305. Career highlights include: BBC (Last Man Standing, Tribal Wives, Skin Deep, Desperate Midwives), C4 (Dispatches), Discovery (Hard Labour), ITV (The Making of a Royal Wedding), C5 (Motorway Madness), National Geographic (The Return of the Clouded Leopards) and Living (Rehab).

Royston Mayoh

Roy is a Director/Producer specialising in entertainment, chalking up many successes over a 48 year career as a writer and innovator of original formats for BBC, ITV, C4, BskyB and FIVE. He directed Catchphrase and has also worked as a college lecturer. Royston has a wealth of knowledge and can offer excellent advice to new entrants.

Joe Mahoney

Joe is Managing Director of ProductionBase. Prior to joining PB, Joe spent a number of years at BBC Worldwide as a senior commissioning editor, before moving on to Channel 4 to become their Head of Commercial Development.

Media Qualifications – What’s Their Worth?

Media qualifications have received much cynicism from the industry, but the number of students who flock to pursue them continues to grow. This week TV lecturer Royston Mayoh who nominated his former student and winner of the Runner of the Year Awards, Jade Gilbert, weighs up their real value.

How wonderful to hear that, Jade Gilbert, won the 2010 ProductionBase Runner of the Year award, and my personal congratulations to her for that, but how strange that in the very same week I am asked to write about my experiences as a college lecturer in TV production, what my view is about the value of these ‘media’ qualifications.

It is no secret that a degree in ‘media’ is viewed by both the academic world and the TV world with a certain amount of scepticism. Although it would be quite unfair to make a sweeping generalisation I think that, in the main, most would agree that the academic world regard it as a ‘soft’ subject, whilst the TV world regard it as having very little real value.