Joanne the Coach

You Don't Have to be a Wanker to Work Here, But it Helps

I am normally very prickly about criticism of people in media.  They are my clients and I know how hard they work and that their lives are often much less rosy than they may appear on the surface.

But come on media people, we've all met numpties like this, haven't we? 

They're the ones giving the good apples a bad name

So You Want To Be On A TV Show?

One of the most popular sections in my media marketing newsletter is when we list the TV stations' appeals for programme participants. 

So for anyone who's not a newsletter subscriber (and why ever not?  it's good y'know) here they are collected together:

• For opportunities to be in a BBC Show click here (My current favourite is the appeal for people who hate the Welsh countryside.  What a hoot.  Sounds almost as good as Fart Camp).
• BBC audience tickets are available here if you want to just watch and learn
• Appeals for ITV shows are listed here Booze and babies feature heavily.  Don't all rush at once.
• For Channel Four shows click here Some of them even require you to keep your clothes on.
• Shows on Five are listed here but it doesn't look as if this list is updated too often
• And for miscellaneous appeals from a range of channels click here

If you know of any more TV show listings, feel free to add them in a comment.  I know there are some appeals from US programmes here, but it would be useful to know of any others, for the benefit of worldwide readers.  Think of it as your good deed for today.

Which Came First, The Story or the Case Study?

Getting Ink Requests is a new blog designed to help journalists and case studies meet in perfect harmony.  Hurrah say all the freelancers, and thanks for making the gnarly task of finding case studies that bit easier.

Not so says student journalist & blogger Dave Lee.  (I do love a Student With Something To Say, almost as much as I love Students Who Shrug and Mumble.  You have to watch out for the S & Ms, they are slow burners who will eventually come to great things).

Writing in the Press Gazette student blog, Dave laments the outrageousness of looking for people to fit the story you're writing.  He feels it's downright unethical to look for case studies to fit pre-conceived stories.  Instead he pins his hopes on finding "extraordinary people around every corner".

I once worked for a TV show editor who believed, like Dave, that there's a story round every corner, and it's just a case of going out and finding them.  So we were banned from advertising for case studies, and were instead dispatched around the UK to approach people in shopping centres etc to ask if they had a story to tell. 

It was a HORRID experience, a poor use of time and ultimately worthless in terms of actually finding people for the programme.  Imagine you're out doing your shopping and someone from a TV show approaches you and asks (a) if you have a story and (b) are interested in talking about it on TV?  Naturally you'd tell them to eff off immediately.

Now of course everybody's got a story of one sort or another, but where does a researcher start to find it if they've just randomly stopped someone on the street ('Anything happen in your childhood? No? Umm...how about adolescence?  Any teenage traumas? etc etc ad feckin' infinitum). 

It took days and days and contributed absolutely zipola to the programme - not one interviewee was found via these stop and search tactics.  All it produced was an exhausted and demoralised production team.  And in the end we did have to advertise for case studies, in order to avoid producing a chat show without any guests.*

The only way this research method could possibly have worked was maybe with an enormous staff of people approaching vast quantities of people.  A bit like...oh yes...distributing case study requests via a website.

The more specific you can be about what you are looking for in a case study, the easier it makes it for someone to put their hand up and say 'oh yes, that happened to me'.  Of course there will be times when you find the case study first and the wider story follows later, but in general this is not how the media world works.  A Thing happens, a journalist researches and writes about it, and in the process looks for case studies to prove that The Thing is real (and to make it less of a snore if it's an economy story).

The times when you find the case study first and develop the story from there are in the minority.  I guess the answer is always to keep your ears open because you never know if your next case study will find you or vice versa.

~~

*  The TV programme in question only lasted one awkward series.  Several of its staff left the television industry soon after making it.  The production company in question prospers on and is now making the bogglesome Lily Allen show for BBC3.  Go figure. 

The Secret Identity of a TV Blogger

So farewell then TV Controller blog.  The cheekiest, snipiest undercover commentator on the business of television has flounced off to feck knows where.  Though not without fingering some other bloke as the alleged writer of the blog.  Honestly TV types, get it together. 

So who really is the secret-spiller behind TV Controller?  Well, who else has announced a graceful exit from their regular occupation this week?  That's right, Richard Madeley or Judy Finnigan, my money's on one of you pair.

And now fans of TV's festering underbelly will have to make do with the Television Secrets blog instead (though its author will have to do better at hiding his secret identity.  If I didn't know who he was already, I would have worked it out by now.  Let's hope he never gets a job as Batman).

Good Grief, I'm Having a Flashback - The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle

Did you see the new Jennifer Saunders/Tanya Byron comedy show, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, last night?  It's a sitcom about a daytime talk show.  Having worked on more TV talk shows* than should be legal, it felt more like a documentary rather than a comedy to me. So in future episodes I look forward to:

• Production staff referring to programme guests as "pond life" (prompting presenters to ask "How pondy are they?" about each show's guests);
• People being paid to cry onscreen.  Worse than that, people being paid to reunite with long lost relatives ("Yes I will come and meet my long lost sister, but I'll need £100 to turn up").  And your favourite and mine, the classic people being paid to propose.
• Guests being offered only doughnuts and sweets before a show, so they go on air on the crest of a sugar rush.
• Producers thinking that a show about orgies is a terrific idea for a daytime TV show, and laughing hysterically when viewers with children phone up to complain.

The only bit that didn't ring true was the producer with a child (albeit one she didn't see). You'll find precious few working mothers on daytime TV - shame, because it might improve the shows if more of the people making them had experience of life as it is lived by their viewers.

*Though I never worked on Kilroy.  People who'd worked on Kilroy tended to shudder in an uncontrollable way when they talked about it, and I figured this was NOT A GOOD SIGN.

Porky TV Journos Needed, Only The Young and Dishy Need Apply. Reckless Attitude to Own Health Optional

This just in, marked urgent:

Message sent from: Alexander Ward
Email address: alexander.ward@endemoluk.com
Job title: Producer
Publication: TV series.
Message:

Hi there,

I am making a new 8 x 1 hour series for a prime time slot on Channel 4.

I am looking for a female journalist, up to 30 years old, who would be
willing to experiment in 8 to 10 extreme diets.

We would like to the journalist to investigate the 'fad' diets, and what
they do to you.

We are also looking for a young (ish) good looking doctor, male or female.

If you could help with any of the above, I would love to hear from you.

Regards,

Alex Ward

~~

Bless young Alex, we can all rest easy now -  TV's future is safe in your hands.  And that reminds me, anybody know when Fart Camp is due on?

TV Fakes: See It But Don't Neccessarily Believe It

Lots of stories around about fake TV at the moment.  Apparently the Queen walked this way, not that way, and Gordon Ramsay ain't such a good fisherman after all.

Amateurs!  In my day we faked with so much more sneakiness and disregard for the truth.  Producers at one TV show I worked on thought nothing of paying people to behave exactly as they wanted them to - whether it was to cry, reunite with lost relatives or propose (programme staff even bought the ring from Argos - this was daytime TV after all, gotta be budget conscious).  I will never forget the look on one bloke's face just after he had proposed to his girlfriend on national TV for £100.  She was overjoyed, he was horrifed.  Within minutes he was avoiding her and flirting with the production staff. 

At our teleclass on Getting into TV last week, we talked about how coaching as depicted on TV is often so far removed from what a real coaching session is actually like.  In a way I think it's good that people are becoming more aware of how manufactured TV can be.  Enjoy it, be entertained by it but don't neccessarily believe that what you're seeing is real.  And if someone proposes to you on a daytime chat show, run away fast in whatever direction you like.

Why I No Longer Produce TV Programmes

I used to make progammes about all kinds of odd pockets of society.  Sometimes I miss it.  But not today, thanks to this gem of an appeal, posted by the BBC to the Broadcasting Doctor site:

~~

DOCTOR FOR  FART CAMP!

A new BBC Three series is considering taking a humorous look at gastroenterology. Provisionally entitled 'Fart Camp' it will help people with embarrassing digestive problems - with a particular, though not exclusive focus on flatulence. Though on the surface a tongue in cheek idea, the programme, if made, will be produced by the BBC Science and History department and will have a strong scientific bent - including breakthroughs in some more esoteric fields of gastroenterological research. The programme will include both treatment of patients and quirky experiments (e.g. measuring patients' 'fart fingerprint') that are also of genuine scientific interest. 

This idea is only in the very earliest stages of development but they are looking for a potential presenter for the programme who is a specialist in gastroenterology with young appeal.  Email for details.

~~

And people still think a TV career is glamorous.