This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps

[Caliga]

Unless Canadians do the right thing & elect a Liberal government in 2015.

How will that help?  The Liberals will create do-nothing jobs at the CBC to keep people employed?

[Sheilbh]

Same here.  Media jobs are not what they used to be as the industry can no longer afford the pay scales of yesteryear.  Not with advertising dollars drying up and going to other platforms.  Further, the CBC, our state broadcaster, the place to be for safe secure media employment, is shedding thousands of jobs and will be a shell of its former self within the next five years.

The BBC is doing worse than shedding jobs: it's relocating people to Manchester.

On a dark Hampstead night you can sometimes hear the plaintive wails of pure horror emitting from the well-appointed homes of BBC executives and producers.

[DGuller]

To be fair, Hans is a fascist scum.  Or whatever word you should use instead of fascist to avoid being accused of throwing out empty inflammatory labels.

I think his opinions are well represented in the conservative movement though the politicians tend to be a bit more diplomatic.

I'm not saying that a lot of "conservatives" in general are not fascist scum.

[crazy canuck]

Doesn't sound like "succeeding" though.

You're succeeding in getting paying work in that industry and building a reputation. That is success necessary to get the ultimate success: a secure well-paid media job.

I know people who are on the constant life-rigmarole of decent paid contract jobs at the BBC (the BBC almost never hire people permanently because they don't want new people in the pension scheme, at most you get 2 years at a time) to incredibly low-paid deals at independent production companies selling their wares to the odd internet start-up. They're succeeding in that they're getting paid work, which thousands of interns who want in don't, and they're building a profile. But it seems to take a while to be financially successful.

Same here.  Media jobs are not what they used to be as the industry can no longer afford the pay scales of yesteryear.  Not with advertising dollars drying up and going to other platforms.  Further, the CBC, our state broadcaster, the place to be for safe secure media employment, is shedding thousands of jobs and will be a shell of its former self within the next five years.

Unless Canadians do the right thing & elect a Liberal government in 2015.

I doubt any political party will have an interest in pumping money into a failed media platform. 

[garbon]

Doesn't sound like "succeeding" though.

You're succeeding in getting paying work in that industry and building a reputation.

I don't think that's what she was saying and again by no means would someone from an affluent suburb talk about 25k as "I moved from market to market, always achieving a better title, a better salary. Succeeding."

Well I suppose they could but I'd say their worldview was odd.

[Grey Fox]

Unless Canadians do the right thing & elect a Liberal government in 2015.

How will that help?  The Liberals will create do-nothing jobs at the CBC to keep people employed?

Restore it's funding to pre-conservative levels.

Some cut jobs are journos, yes but some others are content providers.

[crazy canuck]

Same here.  Media jobs are not what they used to be as the industry can no longer afford the pay scales of yesteryear.  Not with advertising dollars drying up and going to other platforms.  Further, the CBC, our state broadcaster, the place to be for safe secure media employment, is shedding thousands of jobs and will be a shell of its former self within the next five years.

The BBC is doing worse than shedding jobs: it's relocating people to Manchester.

On a dark Hampstead night you can sometimes hear the plaintive wails of pure horror emitting from the well-appointed homes of BBC executives and producers.

[Caliga]

@GF I see.  My question to you wasn't sarcasm, I genuinely wondered if they had promised to alleviate that and if so, how.

[Admiral Yi]

Sounds believable to me for a local TV producer in London. Lots of people want to work in media. They get shitty deals because of it, in the hope that one day they'll break out.

Even if we accept that she took a 25K gofer job in Boston after several years of experience (several years of succeeding), that means her husband had to be making 100K as a copy editor at the Hartford Courant.  No chance.

I have a buddy who's a producer for ABC and he makes very nice bank.  25K is production assistant money, not producer money.

[Neil]

Unless Canadians do the right thing & elect a Liberal government in 2015.

How will that help?  The Liberals will create do-nothing jobs at the CBC to keep people employed?

Restore it's funding to pre-conservative levels.

Some cut jobs are journos, yes but some others are content providers.

They lost the NHL.  What choice did they have?  Hockey Night in Canada was the only thing on the CBC that a lot of people actually liked.

The CBC can never be like the BBC.

[Razgovory]

To be fair, Hans is a fascist scum.  Or whatever word you should use instead of fascist to avoid being accused of throwing out empty inflammatory labels.

I think his opinions are well represented in the conservative movement though the politicians tend to be a bit more diplomatic.

I'm not saying that a lot of "conservatives" in general are not fascist scum.

I'm not sure it's fair to call it "fascist".  The idea that the poor will just vote to give themselves free money is an idea with a lot of currency in both conservative and libertarian thought.  Most don't go out and say the poor shouldn't be able to vote (though some have, arguing for a property requirement to vote), but Tamas often argues that way, Yi goes on and on about free money, and Romney's statements about the "47 percent".

[Eddie Teach]

To be fair, Hans is a fascist scum.  Or whatever word you should use instead of fascist to avoid being accused of throwing out empty inflammatory labels.

Do me next!!  What am I??

You're as empty inflammatory label as they come. 

[celedhring]

It's a bad time for working in the media; I haven't been able to live off exclusively TV/film gigs since 2011, and I have been taking gigs in publishing and education to round out my income. Then again, Spain's been in the gutter, so it may not be representative.

But truth is that media have been in a race to the bottom for a decade now. It's no longer possible to monetize content in the same way it was done before. It's not only advertising money, people have so many windows to get entertainment from nowadays, that it's turned into a buyer's market: people aren't willing to spend as much as they did. All in all, it's started a downward cost-cutting spiral that results in less jobs and less pay.

[Norgy]

It's a bad time for working in the media; I haven't been able to live off exclusively TV/film gigs since 2011, and I have been taking gigs in publishing and education to round out my income. Then again, Spain's been in the gutter, so it may not be representative.

But truth is that media have been in a race to the bottom for a decade now. It's no longer possible to monetize content in the same way it was done before. It's not only advertising money, people have so many windows to get entertainment from nowadays, that it's turned into a buyer's market: people aren't willing to spend as much as they did. All in all, it's started a downward cost-cutting spiral that results in less jobs and less pay.

Add to that a steady influx of young people who wants nothing but "to work in media" and you have a really shitty employment situation.
Norway had an unnaturally high number of small, local newspapers, but the death of print media has been like the Black Scourge 2.0 on them.

I don't envy anyone working exclusively in media. I get by because I write for companies outside of the typical media business. Glad I didn't become a journo.

[celedhring]

Aye, there's many more young'uns coming off uni and film schools that want to work in the media than the industry can support. I suppose expectations will adjust over time and people will go back to wanting to be lawyers.

Many colleagues are taking now jobs in local and regional media that are the classic underpaid jobs you take when you're fresh off school. These companies now have somebody with buckets of experience accepting a McDonald's salary, just so he can stay in the industry.