Code of practice to ensure fair treatment of TV writers

Published Tuesday 22 January 2008 at 15:45 by Matthew Hemley

Broadcasters and production companies will be pressed to improve the working conditions of television drama writers under a new code of practice set to be unveiled next month.

The code, which has the working title How to Handle Writers, is being put together by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and will address a variety of issues, including working hours and the consequences of production teams making script changes without consultation.

Naomi MacDonald, assistant general secretary at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, told The Stage the new document has been drawn up following consultation with members over how they have been treated at the hands of television companies and broadcasters, including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

In particular, it seeks to cap the number of rewrites an author is required to do for a programme, with broadcasters being urged not to require upwards of between eight and ten.

It will also make a clear distinction between ‘re-briefs’ - where a production team is obliged to pay a writer to make changes to a script because of a new brief they have issued - and re-writes, where a script editor can request reasonable changes to be made to script based on the work a writer has submitted so far at no extra cost.

The document will also ask broadcasters and production companies to make it clear when a script has formally been “accepted” - the point at which a writer’s final payment becomes due.

MacDonald said: “The code will be a list of guidelines about how writers should be treated. But we are also putting in guidelines about how writers should behave professionally and things they ought to do and not do. We are trying to say, ‘here are problems that have occurred in the past, how can we stop them happening again?’”

Last month, the BBC announced it was also launching a set of in-house guidelines that address how its drama production staff deal with writing talent.

In particular, the BBC’s code covers those writers who work on its long-running series, which MacDonald said were a “bit like factories”.

BBC head of drama production John Yorke said: “Basically writers are the life and blood of everything we do. If you treat them well they will be more loyal. I don’t believe writers have been abused by our system, but inevitably, and particularly in long-running shows, it can become a bit of treadmill, so this is just about making sure they get the respect that is deserved.”

Yorke said he would look at the guild’s own code and added he would consider merging the two in the future.