BBC and its respect of writers.

[PeckhamRose]

This is an email sent to the Writers Guild of Great Britain and the WGGB's reply.

Basically, the BBC has no respect for its writers without whom there would be no drama/comedy/radio shows.

The reply is brilliant.

Takes a little time but some of you may be interested.

[Ted Max]

For an episode of ?Doctors? (who make over 200 episodes a year and is one of the BBC?s largest commissioners) a writer can earn ?3,142.01. That might be enviable to some, but not when you consider it can represent six months or more work for the writer.

What a load of old cock.

[Ted Max]

Just to expand, as that looks unnecessarily blunt. There is no way, just because it can take half a year to get something into studio from start to finish, with a few re-writes along the way, that an episode of Doctors represents, or even "can represent" six months' work for any writer. 200 episodes a year, each taking six month's of somebody's time? Are there 100 writers producing Doctors' scripts?

That kind of bluster is just self-defeating.

Of course, pay the writers a decent fee. Of course, don't waste your license fee money on wasteful stuff. But come on.

[DaveR]

WGGB response is mainly concerned with BBC issues other than what they pay writers, which suggests to me they don't feel they have a particularly strong case. Although we can reasonably expect the BBC to behave differently from purely commercial organisations, they're not the Arts Council, and its not their job to subsidise writers - just pay them a fair rate. Nobody is forced to work for the BBC - if the money is that bad, go write for someone else. What's that? No-one else is prepared to pay you anything? Now I see the problem a little more clearly!

[SteveT]

DaveR wrote:- What's that? No-one else is prepared to pay you anything? Now I see the problem a little more clearly!

:))

It has always been a poorly paid cottage industry and few have made a living and far less have made a killing such as Ms Rowling.

[PeckhamRose]

But cutting out biscuits at writers meetings because of costs? Didn't you find that amusing?

A payment of ?90 odd for up to 3 days (often away from home) to attend the filming of one's work?

And yes, whilst writing Doctors may sound an easy and cheap thing to you, the time can indeed be up to 6 months because the levels of management all want their say in how things are done and so it can take a long time to get back to the writer with instructions on cuts and edits and rewrites.

I know most of you above appear to be very unsympathetic about it, which shocked me, but at least I was trying to show the unrealistic attitudes the managements have towards writers, when it is their own levels of management which should be cut and stars payments looked at!

Anyway, sorry to have taken up broadbandwidth on this one...

[louisiana]

My sympathies are with you, PR, but I fear this is demand and supply, and they clearly have enough writers (or they'd be offering more money).

I suggest if money is to be made from the written word, it is to be made elsewhere. Writing a bestseller that gets turned into a movie. Writing that brilliant/daft book that everyone buys at Xmas (Eats, Leaves and Shoots Lynn Truss, or whatever it was called). Or if creativity in general is your bag, coming up with the next new popular board game mebbe...

Life in general is not fair, it has to be said. There are those that have never had to work a day in their lives, while others do thankless jobs for decades for not much at all. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky if we (a) get paid quite a bit or (b) can live on the money from doing something we enjoy.

[HellNoHellYeah]

Writing is notoriously underpaid. I should know. I do it for a living. That said, it is the best job in the world IMHO

[Ted Max]

Anyway, sorry to have taken up broadbandwidth on this one...

I think it's an interesting topic. No need to close down the debate because there was disagreement on one aspect of it.

How writing is valued is interesting. Within our culture, some writing is highly rewarded and some is not. There is already some money flowing from license fee to writers of the finely-crafted 45 minute afternoon play on Radio 4 - but clearly there is little perceived commercial value in that format at all. As a society, if we valued the telling of stories in that format enough to reward the writer more then that's what would happen. As it is, it is subsidised in the name of cultural enrichment, I guess, with writers getting what they can to indulge their need to process their experiences and stories in that format. (same goes for other formats, too).

Should the BBC be cutting out the frivolity to encourage a wider range of writers, and better reward the ones it has? You betcha. And I already made that point.

it can take a long time to get back to the writer with instructions on cuts and edits and rewrites.

During which time you can do other things, surely. If I were taking a job, I'd quote for the whole of it (including rewrites, time on set etc) and not do it if it were not worth my while. Especially if it is for something like Doctors, which is not likely to be a labour of love - but rather something you'd do for the money.

I didn't see the biscuit bit. I agree, that would be a deal breaker.

[Brendan]

Well said Ted. Do you take paypal?

[Ted Max]

The age of being paid to write is over, I read (for free) recently.

[nashoi]

I know a couple of writers for the BBC one in TV one in radio. When I last met the TV script writer I put to him the idea that writers in general weren't paid very well, I'd read somewhere that the average income was ?15000 a year, which when you consider how much JK Rowling alone is earning means there must be an awful lot on next to bugger all. He replied in a rather confessional tone that actually writing for the beeb was really quite well paid and that the top writers who get regular commissions from shows like Eastenders and are prepared and able to really churn scripts out can earn upto ?400,000 a year. Although their days maybe numbered, as DaveR pointed the BBC is not a charity with a duty to subsidise anyone. The people at the top will earn a lot and those at the bottom very little, rather like most businesses.

[bawdy-nan]

should that be "for" rather than "of"?

I'm not being entirely rude; there's a demi-shred of curiosity too.

[SteveT]

If I could write like my hero's Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, JB Priestley, and many more. I would be delighted to work for free just for their ability of expression and character depiction.

I don't think it would be long before you had wealth thrust upon you, whilst harbouring their talent.

[HonaloochieB]

A humble scrivener puts his two penn'orth in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8148899.stm

[SteveT]

With Boris' largesse to charity he will no doubt get a knighthood pretty soon.

[macroban]

I'm old enough to remember when East Dulwich had real scriveners. The last one I remember was a resident of the Ivanhoe Snug in the 1970s.