The Writers’ Guild blog has an interesting and important debate over the assertion that the BBC Writers’ Academy favours its trainees so that other writers get less of a chance. This blog is partly my response to the debate in the WGGB blog.
http://writersguild.blogspot.com/2009/12/bbc-writersroom-update.html
A couple of years ago I interviewed John Yorke, BBC TV series supremo:
http://www.twelvepoint.com/files/Interview%20John%20Yorke_Julian%20Friedmann.pdf
It was clear then that the Academy made sense from the BBC’s point of view: they would get a better-trained cadre of writers, who would deliver more usable scripts in less time, thus saving time and money.
Other writers (such as my own clients) would probably get less access to slots even though some of them have had many years of diligent service in writing dozens and dozens of soap and series scripts.
There cannot be enough to go round for everyone. As a result of the increase in degree courses for scriptwriters over the last 5 years there are also now many more writers with some experience (even if it is spec academic scripts) trying for the decreasing number of slots. Inevitably there will be fewer writers getting a piece of the pie.
On top of that the BBC like the other broadcasters are having to cut the budgets of their shows. This is a reality they would be negligent not to deal with. Using equally talented writers who have been trained in the in-house hothouse of the Academy is pragmatic and sensible even though the Beeb admits a kind of sadness that they can’t please all the people all the time. But I don’t see anyone protesting at the ever-increasing new degree courses in scriptwriting that will turn out hungry and ambitious writers also after those slots.
The key – which I have encouraged through the pages of TwelvePoint.com and as an agent is to be flexible and adapt. There have been several long-running series and soaps cancelled in the last 4 or 5 years: between 500 and 600 episodes have disappeared; add that to the Academy writers and the new graduates and any scriptwriter who assumes that they can behave as they have in the past will end up probably out in the cold for a lot of the time.
Writers have to be more proactive; they have to start partially being like producers; they have to write saleable and commercial spec scripts; they have to consider other formats like novels – I had amazing feedback in Cheltenham on a session about novel writing for scriptwriters.
They way we were has gone. Like the ice shelf at the North Pole. As an agent I have had to make changes to the way I work to deal with the changing business in which we all work: so writers need to make changes. If you are a storyteller and want to earn a living by telling stories then tell stories for people who want to buy them in the format that they want to buy them. Don’t worry so much about the format. I would not recommend novelists start writing scripts (without training and experience); but most scriptwriters I talk to have read more novels than they have read scripts. You see where I am going with this. Watch out for my Cheltenham talk as a forthcoming article in TwelvePoint.