ROCK ME BABY, NOT ROB ME

If ever a reminder of exploitation needed to be painted in letters ten foot high, let alone repeated, it’s Chris Rock’s observation – minimum wage is a way of saying if they could pay you less, they would.

It’s with these words in mind that I checked out the Ideas Factory Scotland website which is calling for people happy to work as trainee TV crew for the Boom Room, a Channel 4/Nexuslive internet music show. The only problem here is it’s not even minimum wage. Oh, and they give you a whole day to shoot and edit the goods, because as they say - it should possible (sic) to record and edit the whole thing during the day in Edinburgh in September.

And here's me thinking BBC Scotland are cheapskates...

Am I being unfair by trashing this ‘opportunity’? No, I’m not. The application form makes no mention of pay, not even expenses apart from some free booze after the work’s been done and maybe somewhere to doss. Candidates are also being asked to work at weekends – long gone are the days of time and a half for dragging yourself in on a Saturday.

These media muggers also ask for your preferred ‘specialism’ – eg. are you a camera op, a sound engineer or a web encoder? Web encoder? Is that not a skill worth money? As if, like making the tea, it’s just something you’re expected to do these days as long as you don’t go round asking daft questions such as - why am I not getting paid for this?

Just when it couldn’t get any cheekier, C4 and Nexuslive also solicit your ideas – the intellectual capital of any creative venture. Only these chancers don’t think they’re worth paying for either. Tell that to those format floggers who rake in millions off the back of tired old programme ideas scribbled on napkins over expenses-paid lunches in W1.

Where any actual ‘training’ is concerned, we’re left in the dark. No mention of who, or how. Maybe that’s because they expect you to know what the job is. At a rough guess I’d say if your application’s successful, the next thing C4/Nexuslive will be asking for is you bring your own gear, burn your own tape stock, use your own computer and buy your own lunch.

C4 and Nexuslive would say their intentions are good. Nexuslive claim they do it for free and even work to promote charities. Fair enough, you might think, but if that’s the case then how come they’re being funded by Ideasmart, a NESTA initiative whose support is conditional on creating viable businesses? And don’t tell me that somebody somewhere won't be making money out of this, if not now, but when they’ve built a big enough library and client base – in other words a business built on the back of free labour and talent disguised as ‘training’. And as long as broadcasters won’t employ people at realistic rates, then they’ll keep getting away with exploiting those poor hopefuls looking for a TV career. Put it this way, if you're no good they won't hire you anyway. But if you are that good and you really want a job in telly, why not make your own video virals and flog ‘em as downloads online?

Auntie Leanne’s advice? Avoid like a dose of NSU. And remember the Rock.