Comment: unpicking the slowdown with Talent Manager data

The anecdotal evidence of a production-drought is clear – and the statistical evidence is clear too. At The Talent Manager, the number of TV production job postings this year is down more than 40% on last year’s post-Covid boom.

More starkly, there have been 11% fewer jobs in the first five months than during the same period in 2021 and almost 1/3rd fewer than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

The reality – as people at the coalface can testify – is that the usual spring resumption of large-scale production has not materialised, as broadcasters try to clear the shelves of the surplus of shows commissioned last year and delay commissioning new ones.

Freelancers have felt the impact acutely. Most anticipate a quiet period over Christmas but expect – and plan – to have been back working since March.

For indies, especially the smaller ones, it’s hard too. Many companies we speak to say they have a project ready to go but are just waiting for the final green light from the commissioner. Meanwhile their overheads continue to mount.

At TM we’ve adopted the approach we took during Covid to try and help freelancers through. As well as running webinars, masterclasses and in-person networking events around the country for them to meet with indies, we’ve been sourcing jobs from other, non-TV sectors which suit our members’ transferable skills.

Working as a content producer for John Lewis (one of last week’s jobs) or making video content for other companies and brands may not always be first choice work, but it can help pay the mortgage.

We’ve also seen signs for optimism. In the last couple of weeks, there have been several days when the volume of job postings on The Talent Manager was back towards the long-term overall trend, suggesting fledgling green shoots of recovery.

More significantly the number of talent searches being done by recruiters has remained fairly constant: although down 16% on last year’s peak, it is on a par with 2021 and up significantly on 2019.

Much like during Covid, indies and broadcasters are using our talent-tracking tools during this quiet period to plan ahead: identifying freelancers they want to work with and building their networks, so they are ready to go when their projects do get green-lit.

Crucially too they are making much more use of our suite of tools to find talent from under-represented groups – again, a trend we saw happen during lockdown. Hits on our Diversity Search Engine are up 69% year to date compared to this time last year.

Both these trends are welcome: The Talent Manager’s USP is to help professionalise recruitment, facilitating more forward-thinking, considered talent-planning by commissioners and producers, and helping to move the industry away from the last-minute, panicked, shout-outs.

But the underlying issues caused by boom and bust remain.

Crises like this production-drought disproportionately affect people from under-represented groups, especially lower socio-economic backgrounds and people with disabilities.

Moreover, the brain-drain of talent leaving the industry, especially at mid to expert level, is a huge waste of collective resource, and one that has a real economic and creative knock-on for producers and buyers.

As a whole, our industry spends a lot of effort trying to rectify these symptoms – with schemes to attract new diverse talent and woo-back returners – without addressing some of the fundamental, structural issues.

During lockdown, The Talent Manager lobbied for the broadcasters to take more of a leadership role when it came to the long-term welfare of their workforce. A similar approach is needed now.

That’s why we would welcome a round-table of stakeholders – broadcasters, Bectu, PACT, Ofcom and others – to try and find a more coordinated, strategic approach to managing the work ecology.

We appreciate that the competition between networks, indies, and even freelancers, is one of the elements that makes our industry so vibrant, and creatively and commercially successful.

But without a degree of joined-up thinking, when programmes do start getting commissioned again, many networks may find there’s no one left to make them.

Sarah Lee is creative director & founder of The Talent Manager