Production Managers (PMs) in television production are mainly female, and as in other industries this ‘feminised’ role is typically afforded lower status than those predominantly performed by men. In our recent study, we explored the experiences of PMs in the UK industry, a group of workers who are often rendered invisible, both within the industry and in television scholarship.

Yet effective production management – encompassing all logistical aspects of programme-making – is critical to a successful television production. It is therefore of some concern that over recent years the industry has struggled to recruit and retain PMs, as well as the production coordinators and production secretaries, who support them, and who constitute the production talent pipeline. (Creative Skillset 2014; Carey et al 2017; BFI 2022; ScreenSkills 2022a and 2022b)

For our BA/Leverhulme funded study, we surveyed 765 production management workers and inteviewed 30. While most of our respondents enjoyed their work, a great many had seriously considered leaving – or indeed had recently left. They list a number of reasons including long hours and a lack of work-life balance in an ‘always on’ culture; perhaps the most critical factor, however, was  the feeling that they were undervalued and disrespected by colleagues (van Raalte et al 2024).

We found that the experiences our respondents described echoed the findings of the late Joan Acker who described the ways in which the gendering of organisations, and of roles within then, can result in a devaluation of women’s work, particularly on that of a feminised workforce (at times regardless of the gender of the individuals within it.) (1990, 1992, 2006).

Following Acker’s framework, we found that

  1. A gendered division of labour effectively separates production management (culturally, structurally and often physically) from other areas of television work, particularly from the higher status ‘editorial’ work still dominated by men. Whereas the latter is generally regarded as ‘creative’, the former is defined in negative terms and often regarded as infinitely elastic, such that ‘if there is nobody to do a job, it falls to the production manager/co-ordinator’. This attitude contributes simultaneously to the over-burdening of PMs, the devaluing of their contribution and the sense that ‘anytime there is an issue, or unhappiness in a team regarding a shoot, it is both your fault and your responsibility [as PM] to fix’.
  2. These divisions are justified through ‘symbols and ideologies’ which, in Acker’s words, bestow ‘legitimacy on the institution and its practices (1992a: 568). Thus, PMs and Line Producers have, until very recently, been excluded from the awards so valued by the industry, and from the opening credits of the shows to which they contribute so much. They are also paid substantially less than editorial colleagues with similar levels of responsibility – with our respondents often considerably more exercised by the discrepancy and what it signifies than the absolute value of their salary.  Meanwhile attitudes of disrespect are effectively handed down from senior to more junior crew members, reinforcing the devalued position of the production team
  3. These gendered structures and ideologies are reinforced by daily interactions that are frequently dismissive and often explicitly sexist in tone. PMs are regularly excluded from early discussions of the budgets they will have to manage, while many feel they struggle to be heard or to have their input and concerns recognised.
  4. Many PMs internalise gendered industry expectations – although for some, we observed, this had become a site of resistance as more and more are willing to name the ‘unspeakable’ inequities identified in the creative industries by Rosalind Gill a decade previously (2014)
  5. The role of the PM can be read as an expression of what Acker calls ‘organisational logic’ (1990: 147) in UK TV. The structural and cultural divide between roles dubbed ‘creative’ and ‘non-creative’ leads, in many instances, to a toxic workplace, and a fundamental undervaluing of women – who are more likely to be found in the latter category of role. Meanwhile an organisational logic predicated on a divide between responsibilities for production and reproduction respectively (Acker 1992: 567) continues to prevail in the industry to such a degree that many women feel to cover their reproductive tracks such that ‘you’re pretending that you’re not a mother and you’re pretending that you’re not a wife, and you’ve got kids at home…’

Unfortunately, the picture of the UK TV workplace that emerged from our research was a far cry from the liberal, progressive image the industry likes to project. On the contrary our respondents describe a fundamentally reactionary sector that has a long way to go before it can offer women, or indeed any other minoritised group, a level playing field. This is nowhere as starkly apparent as in the experience of production managers.

 

The work informing this piece was carried out with Dr Richard Wallis and Dr Rowan Aust. Besides the industry report cited below, the team have produced two articles addressing different aspects of our findings which are currently in the peer review process.

 

Dr Christa van Raalte is Associate Professor of Film and Television at Bournemouth University and head of CEMP, the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice. Her research interests include constructions of gender in action cinema, narrative strategies in complex TV, and working conditions and management practices in the film and television industries. She has recently published articles on these topics in journals including the New Review for Film and Television Studies, the Journal of Popular Film and Television and Media industries, and the Creative Industries Journal, as well as a number of book chapters and industry reports.

 

References

Acker J (1990) Hierarchies, jobs, and bodies: a theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society 4(2): 139–158.

Acker, J. (1992), “From sex roles to gendered institutions”, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 21 No. 5, pp. 565-9.

Acker J (2006) Inequality regimes: Gender, class and race in organizations. Gender & Society 20(4): 441–464.

BFI. (2022). BFI Skills Report. Retrieved from https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/reports/bfi-skills-review-2022

Carey, H., Crowley, L., Dudley, C., Sheldon, H. and Giles, L., 2017. A skills audit of the UK film and screen industries. The Work Foundation. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/work-foundation/ASkillsAuditoftheUKFilmandScreenIndustries_FINAL130617a.pdf

Creative Skillset (2014) Employer Panel Results March 2014. Creative Skillset. https://www.screenskills.com/media/1555/employer_panel_results_march_2014.pdf

Gill, R., 2014. Unspeakable inequalities: Post feminism, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and the repudiation of sexism among cultural workers. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 21(4), pp.509-528.

ScreenSkills. (2022a, June). Forecast of labour market shortages and training investment needs in film and high-end TV production. Retrieved from https://www.screenskills.com/media/5559/2022-06-23-labour-market-shortages-and-training-investment-needs-research.pdf

ScreenSkills. (2022b). Unscripted TV production in the UK: 2021 skills review. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20220314081756/https://www.screenskills.com/media/5232/2022-02-08-unscripted-tv-research.pdf

van Raalte, C., Aust, R., Wallis, R., & Pekalski, D., 2024. Where have all the PMs gone? Addressing the production management skills gap in UK TV. https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/39530/