We need an urgent conversation about what is happening to our TV workforce. The volume of people currently leaving the industry is untenable if we are to have any hope of a meaningful future. Of course, many of these are freelancers who were only ever on short-term contracts. But it is naïve to rationalise their departures merely in terms of collateral damage, as if this was the unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the industry going through a ‘rocky patch’. Let’s cut to the chase. These are the people who constitute the essential production workforce. They are not providing optional or supplementary services. This is the only workforce we have, and one on which we wholly depend. How could any industry survive – let alone thrive in the future – if it has allowed its essential skilled workforce to dissipate?
Any paramedic will tell you that, at the scene of an accident, rapid intervention to control bleeding is a top priority. If blood loss persists, vital organs quickly cease to function, and irreversible damage or death ensue. Yet we seem calmly to be watching the lifeblood of this industry seep away without so much as a tourniquet. It is as if the paramedics had decided that, since the patient’s condition might be terminal anyway, it didn’t really matter. Or perhaps, that a post-mortem infusion would do just as good a job.
The storm clouds that have gathered around the TV industry since early 2023 have been deeply worrying for everyone. Following a period of remarkable growth and success, what has befallen us (particularly in the UK) has been both sudden and largely unexpected. Forces beyond the control of either business leaders or policy makers are wreaking havoc. Under such conditions, economic hatches have been speedily battened. Weathering this particular storm, however, is going to need more than this. Navigating the necessary changes required for the future flourishing of the industry will depend upon a comprehensive plan, central to which must be the people on whom any future industry will be built – its workforce.
It is a remarkable fact that the sustainability of the TV industry in the UK has long been entirely dependent upon a workforce for which it takes no responsibility, provides only minimal investment, and in which it has shown such little concern or interest. Freelancers are treated as if they were suppliers (other than for tax purposes when, often they are not) and so it is assumed to be entirely normal and reasonable to leave them to look out for themselves. But this is a reckless and risky operational model on which to base an industry of the scale and significance of TV. Crucially, it assumes an endless supply of always-ready talent at the very moment it is needed. But as was discovered in the boom years, this supply of skills is not so easy to switch off and on at a moment’s notice. Despite an over-supply of aspiring young people at entry-level, research has shown the worrying rates at which skilled experienced talent is lost to this industry by mid-career. Less than two years ago, alarms were being regularly sounded about skills shortages. Remember headlines like this one? The TV industry of tomorrow may continue to draw on youthful energy and enthusiasm, but – take it from me – it will not survive if left only in the hands of 20-year-old graduates.
Lack of care about both the workers who are now leaving in droves, and the likely future needs of the industry, should be keeping us all awake at night. Current levels of attrition cannot be allowed to continue without an urgent industry-wide conversation about what sort of industry we want to survive for the future. The industry deserves this much. Let’s do it now, whilst we still have one.
- Dr Richard Wallis is based at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice
Source: We cannot afford to be blasé about freelancers leaving the industry
