Never mind the glass ceiling, it's becoming harder and harder even to get a foot in the media's front door. Adrian Monck overhears a remark (made tongue-in-cheek, I hope) at an industry gathering:
We get hundreds of applications for every job we advertise. Too many to go through. But we have developed a strategy for dealing with them. Before scanning the CVs, we split the pile in two and chuck half away. After all, you don't want unlucky people working for you.
While a survey by Television and Young People - the charitable arm of the Edinburgh International Television Festival - finds that newcomers worry that they don't have the right contacts to make any headway:
The research echoes a study last year commissioned by TVYP, which found that low starting salaries were a key disincentive for those from low income backgrounds, with the average starting salary in TV just £12,000 per annum. Last year's survey also revealed that 77% of young people trying to get a foothold in the TV industry had worked without pay for up to three months and 12% had worked for free for over six months.
I find it slightly depressing that the two faces shown on the TVYP web site belong to Vernon Kay and Graham Norton, but that's life, post-Big Brother, I suppose.
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