Broadcaster and crew union Bectu met with British broadcasters today to discuss the “unprecedented” job drought in unscripted, which has seen many freelancers looking for jobs outside of TV.
If Variety reported last month, the unscripted industry is currently in crisis following a perfect storm of disrupted pipelines and economic downturns that have caused unscripted commissioning to come to a near standstill. As a result, many freelancers in the unscripted community have had to take on other jobs from hospitality to temping to pay their bills.
Bectu is now liaising with broadcasters in an effort to remedy the situation.
“Following Bectu’s recent poll which showed that nearly half of UK freelancers working in unscripted TV are currently out of a job, today we met with a number of major UK broadcasters to discuss the downturn in employment and its impact on the freelance workforce,” head of Bectu Philippa told Children Variety.
“Freelancers have endured incredible hardships during the pandemic and it is clear that many of them are still dealing with job precariousness and the great challenges that come with it. Today’s meeting was a positive first step in developing an industry-led strategy to both address the current crisis and drive long-term change in the industry – in particular to address the industry’s ‘feast or famine’ nature. to grab.
“It’s important that we continue to have regular conversations about this,” Childs continued. “And we look forward to further talks in the coming weeks. Freelancers are critical to the success of the UK’s world-class film and TV production sector and we are committed to working with all relevant stakeholders, including broadcasters, to find and implement solutions.”