Salary changes in the Broadcast Landscape by Tracey Newton
A recent review of pay structure within the TV industry over the past 2 years, showed a steady increase in salaries for operational roles, particularly for Presentation Schedulers.
The demand for skilled schedulers has increased as people who have worked as schedulers move onto programming planning or another area within TV after a few years.
The more senior roles in presentation are generally recruited internally, as there are always people ready to move up the career ladder, which means channels are always looking to recruit at the more junior/middle levels.
University degrees now include modules on scheduling in TV so people are now able to learn about this role rather than having to rely on finding out about it through practical work experience.
More and more people have got into scheduling now, and as a result competition for work in this area is stronger. There has also been a remarkable increase in demand for language skills in scheduling – where the communication between local offices and the presentation teams are so important. This is great for all multilingual schedulers as having both language skills and presentation scheduling experience means you are very attractive to many of the international broadcasters.
Salaries have also risen over the last 2 years , the average salary now for an experience Scheduler is now £27,000-£28,000, whereas 24 months ago it was around the £25,000- £26,000 mark.
Post Production roles have stayed fairly static, with maybe a slight downturn in salaries – because the Post Houses and Agencies are all in tight competition and the demand for talent is generally based on winning new projects. Salary ranges have been fairly consistent
e.g. Post Producers are paid between £30,000 -£35,000 , Editors £40,000, Reversioning Producers £30,000 – £35,000, MCR £21,000 – £23,000
We have, however, seen an increase in freelancer rates particular for Editors and Post Producers, as these are always in demand and range between – £200-£250 per day for an Editor and £200 – £250 per day for a Post Producer.
Broadcast Salaries in general have not hugely changed, however the reduction in number of job roles has. This is because most of the bigger multi-channels are struggling to get authorisation for new head count and their recruitment is focussed on replacement roles to cover leavers/secondments or mat covers etc . In addition many major TV networks have restructured and relocated some departments to local countries which has also had an added impact on the availability of roles in London.
Because of the downturn in permanent roles available we have seen a 25% increase in the number of Fixed term contracts on offer. As a result organisations have to be able to offer more flexibility/attractive salaries in some cases, to entice candidates to take the plunge and move from permanent work to fixed term roles. In most cases, candidates are open to consider this change, provided the opportunity is good and career development is offered.
