{"id":1603,"date":"2019-08-07T11:17:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T10:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:26:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T13:26:12","slug":"is-uk-television-facing-a-crisis-in-skills-and-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/is-uk-television-facing-a-crisis-in-skills-and-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Is UK Television facing a crisis in skills and training?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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James delivers his presentation on skills and training in the UK television industry at the inaugural Welsh Postgraduate Research Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest post, James Davies outlines the challenges of Labour Entry and Skill Formation facing the UK Television industry. The post is based on his prizewinning presentation delivered at the inaugural Welsh Postgraduate Research Conference in June 2019.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Change is the only constant<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Television production in the UK can be broadly divided into two main \u2018eras.\u2019 In the first, which dominated until the 1980s, the television industry in the UK was a vertically integrated, traditional bureaucratic system, revolving around a major publicly funded broadcaster \u2013 the BBC \u2013 and the heavily regulated public-sector franchises of ITV, funded via advertising revenue (Dex et al. 2000). Permanent, salaried positions within these broadcasters were the norm (Paterson 2001). It can be argued there were two significant catalysts of extensive change within the UK TV industry: The launch of Channel 4 in 1982, and the Broadcasting Act of 1990. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Channel 4 was a new TV channel with the remit\nto broadcast independent programming but not produce it itself and resulted in\nan explosion of the independent TV production sector. The Broadcasting Act\n(1990) brought into legislation a stipulation that 25% of all programming now\nhad to be outsourced to independent firms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result of these changes was a new working\nenvironment, that was heavily reliant on freelance labour (Hodgson and Briand\n2013). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTraditional, salaried positions with long-term job security and possibilities for upward career trajectory were replaced by a short-term economy, requiring more and more flexibility, and skills that were required to become more portable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The ability to quickly shift focus was now\nmore important than the accumulation of experience that was traditionally\nvalued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anti-social network <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With a new working environment, came the issue of organising this changing labour market. With work teams coming together for relatively short projects and then disbanding again, professional networks became vitally important, for a variety of reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, networks are a means to keep teams together from project to project, creating a degree of job security for those able to remain in such groups. Additionally, professional networks are used for learning about job opportunities and making and maintaining professional contacts to sustain work. Antcliff et al. (2007) studied such networks and found that workers in the Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs) use networks for fostering both trust and co-operation, but also for competition, and can be both \u2018open\u2019 and \u2018closed\u2019 in nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unsurprising, then, that the responses\nand experiences of those working in the CCIs towards the professional networks\nare highly ambivalent. Workers have reported feelings of anxiety, and\nisolation, as a result of a heightened sense of precariousness in work, and a\nlack of longer-term stability and security in their careers (Hesmondhalgh and\nBaker 2009). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, there is the issue of who is able\nto enter the professional networks; the key to getting and maintaining work in\nthis new era of TV production. The closed project networks excluded those\nwithout high human and cultural capital (Lee 2011). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, who you know, your personal\nbackground, where you went to school, all become important factors in making\nyou sufficiently attractive for a desirable professional network to allow you\nto be a part of it, making opportunities for new entrants far from equal. Those\nin the middle-classes are more likely to be able to sustain extended periods\nwith little or no income, possess shared cultural norms and reference points\nwith industry gatekeepers, and have family contacts to initiate employment\nthrough informal channels; people like other people who remind them of\nthemselves, if you walk and talk the right way, you fit in with the people\nalready in the network, and you are granted entry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of this make for quite concerning\nreading. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS 2016) published\nfigures showing that, as of 2015, the Creative Industries were: <\/p>\n\n\n\n