BECOMING operations director of a new arts-based internet TV station back in 2000, Ian Murray, MP for Edinburgh South, knew the pay would be dreadful, the prospects even worse, but still embraced the opportunity.
Facing a constant battle for funding, he can’t have been under any illusions of just how precarious this new career would be. Lo and behold, the dot com bubble soon burst and that was the end of that.
Now the new UK Minister of State for Creative Industries, Media and Arts, Murray has an opportunity to influence outcomes in another seismic period of change in the history of television.
With the unbridled global business models of Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and their fellow US tech giants challenging the viability of our public service broadcasters, the stakes for Scotland’s screen talent couldn’t be higher.
The UK Government promises growth. But for whom? Part of the public service ethos enshrined in legislation such as the BBC Charter, coming up for renewal in 2027, ought to be about safeguarding the welfare of the creative people who actually make the films and programmes that inform, educate and entertain us.
The strategy shouldn’t only be to help creative businesses flourish. It must also promote sustainable freelance careers, because TV isn’t just made by the production companies that secure commissions but also the individuals whose ideas and creativity, craft and commitment, ensure that what they produce far exceeds what the broadcasters and their service providers pay them.
Freelancers are an integral part of an independent supply chain, a broadcasting ecosystem in which a small number of broadcasters and streamers are the dominant buyers, dictating terms to the sellers, aka production companies, resulting in lower prices and fewer rights for producers. In this oligopsony, the prosperity of film and TV freelancers is an afterthought at best. Our futures are left to trickle-down economic assumptions and wild west hiring practices.
As commissioning and budgets are further reduced, film and TV-focused social media posts are a stream of despair as freelancers are forced to abandon long and hard-won careers.
For more than half of the UK’s film and TV freelancers, many based in Scotland, it’s a desperate scenario, a failure of the market, one that Murray’s past experience in television hopefully means he both understands and is prepared to do something about.
He doesn’t have a magic wand and the UK Government has already ruled out many important measures that could alleviate the suffering.
Tax credits for the hard-hit factual production sector, not just films, high-end TV drama, feature docs, children’s and video effects – rejected.
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Cultural contribution levy on streamer subscriptions that would pump millions into the development of homegrown drama and factual production – rejected.
Freelancers’ Commissioner with a specific remit to investigate and report at senior government level on important issues impacting film and TV creative workers – rejected, in favour of a “creative freelance champion” with no formal powers.
Calls for a guaranteed basic income or minimum hourly wage for creative freelancers beyond the national minimum wage – rejected.
Statutory requirements for the entire film and HETV industry to report skills and training spending as a percentage of production budgets – rejected.
A raft of other recommendations made this summer by a cross-party parliamentary committee, disappointingly excluding factual production – rejected.
Instead, deregulation is the principal order of the day from the UK Government. Meanwhile, its new £75 million Screen Growth Package, part of a 10-year Creative Industries Sector Plan, is directing millions to training schemes for jobs that don’t exist.
Imagine if this money was instead used to finance the research and development of creative projects. Think of the many jobs that would be created and sustained.
So, what about the independent body that regulates broadcasting? Ofcom just announced a series of updates to PSB production quotas, including setting a 2% annual increase in regional spend to reflect rising production costs. Once again, Scotland’s freelance talent hasn’t been factored in. This adjustment means little if Scottish productions aren’t being staffed by Scottish talent to a fair level.
Ofcom’s imbalanced strategy is based on spend and cost, not the growth of creative people and building sustainable freelance careers. The assumption is still that flexibility for creative businesses will create jobs. But BBC Network Scottish productions like The Traitors have clearly shown this isn’t necessarily the case for freelancers based in Scotland.
There’s still little transparency and accountability. In response to Ofcom’s updates, the BBC wants regular reviews to ensure regional production targets remain achievable and aligned with real-world spending levels. Fine, but the BBC ought also to compile and publish detailed reports, with data provided by the production companies it commissions, to show the extent to which jobs are actually being created for Scottish screen talent using licence fee money earmarked for Scotland.
What does the BBC’s refusal to do this tell us? You decide.
An independent regional production regulatory system that includes an off-screen talent quota based on people, where they live, not the price of their labour is required. And, by the way, more creative staff jobs, as proposed by Chris Bryant, Murray’s predecessor, would be marvellous but is fantasy thinking.
As things stand, it’s not great news for Scotland’s film and TV freelance talent. Our national screen agency is working to do what it can, like funding production companies to employ more freelancers based here to work on their Scottish commissions. But, grossly underfunded, it doesn’t have the means for more ambitious schemes like one to promote feature film production in the way that Screen Ireland can with a budget three times greater.
The Scottish Government too largely prioritises the wider economic impact of the film and TV sectors before the welfare of Scotland’s already established, highly skilled and experienced screen production talent. Scotland’s screen sector may well be on track to contribute an estimated £1 billion to the economy by the end of 2030/31, as evidenced in the new research feted by Angus Robertson, Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary responsible for Culture, but this won’t necessarily translate into more work for freelancers.
Presently, most are preoccupied with survival. Even those currently working worry about where the next gig will come from. I urge Murray to do all he can for Scotland’s film and TV workforce, especially those at senior levels, because these are the folk who will start up creative businesses in the future.
If he doesn’t, it will become increasingly hard for Scots, including from deprived areas like Wester Hailes where he grew up, to imagine, let alone forge, a film and TV career.
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