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Working in the Indies: Precarity, Value and Burnout

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Independent Television Production in the UK

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Abstract

This chapter contains insights into the precarious nature of creative work for television workers in the indie (independent) sector. The findings are based on qualitative research carried out with television workers in the mid-2000s, who were re-interviewed in 2016 and 2017. Focusing on the precarious nature of cultural work in the indie sector, the chapter explores the psychosocial experiences of participants, as they wrestle with the psychological pressures of precarious cultural work, while seeking to derive cultural value from the work that they do. The updated material presented later in the chapter considers how working life has developed for the participants and examines their experiences of industry exit, their ongoing normativity towards cultural work and, for some, their experiences of psychological and physical burnout due to emotional exhaustion and lack of fulfilment.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See www.tvfreelancers.org.uk for full details of the campaign. This was the first Internet campaign in British broadcasting history for better working conditions for television production staff, and it received significant coverage in the Guardian and Broadcast. Notably, the campaign was conducted without union involvement (the main union in the industry for television workers is BECTU (The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union)), and shows the potential for networks as a means of campaigning. See Saundry et al. (2007) for a full discussion of this campaign, and the implications for trade unions in the audiovisual industries.

  2. 2.

    There is little research on burnout and exhaustion in cultural work, but there is a rich strand of research in other professions such as teaching and healthcare (e.g. Farber 1991; Mo 1991; Savicki and Cooley 1987; Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison 2014).

  3. 3.

    SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are drugs that are commonly prescribed to treat the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

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  1. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    David Lee

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Lee, D. (2018). Working in the Indies: Precarity, Value and Burnout. In: Independent Television Production in the UK. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71670-1_5

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