Surviving in Broadcasting

Working in Broadcasting is one of the most rewarding, and yet the most frustrating jobs there is. The viewing public put the same high expectations on TV as they do on movies - yet movies throw millions of dollars at solutions to problem... whereas TV in most countries relies on ingenuity - and no money whatsoever. That means TV and radio broadcasters are often frustrated by the compromises they've had to make as they've made their programmes - and some of the most ingenious people around. In this second of two articles on working in the media, we'll examine what it's really like.

The working day

The working day is long. It's sometimes very long. In the accompanying picture of a film crew I worked with in New York when filming an interview on the Staten Island Ferry, what you can't tell is that the researcher (third from the left) was up until the early hours the night before tracking down interviewees... and that the rest of the film crew have been up since 5 am. The interview on the Staten Island ferry was wrapped by 10.30... at 11, we met our next interviewee at Washington Square... at 1 we had a brief lunch break... we filmed some pickup shots around Greenwich Village at 2... at 3 we piled into our van, drove to JFK, and caught the evening Aer Lingus flight back to Dublin. After a shuttle trip back to Birmingham, I then had to take the tapes directly to the BBC's headquarters at Pebble Mill... then drive home for four or five hours sleep until beginning editing. The programme was transmitted eight days later.

It's not just working in TV that requires stamina... radio is as tough, demanding unsocial hours on a regular basis. The sad fact is that the peak listening time for radio is in the morning. And the only way to get a radio programme up to date in the morning is to be up well before the sun. Our newsroom's morning shift starts at 4 am (though it's often 3.30 if the morning crew know they're going to be busy). Meanwhile, the previous evening, staff have been pre-recording programme material while on shifts that start at 6pm and don't finish until 2. On bad days, of course, the outgoing night staff meet the incoming morning staff.

There is no doubt that such hours and pressures wreak havoc with your home and social life. They probably account for a high proportion of the large numbers of single, divorced and separated people working within the industry. I cheated - I married someone else working equally weird hours and we've learned to live with it. But if you want a nice, sane, 9-5 job with no pressures and plenty of time for outside activities - forget it.

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