Television industry

ONeill2013

What's the Television/Broadcasting industry like in the Republic of Ireland? Is there much work? I'm guessing Dublin is the only decent place for it

I study in England and graduate next year, my course is in the Broadcast Engineering/Operational side of things, has a very high employment rate over the years. We train at the new BBC complex in Manchester.

Northern Ireland hasn't much of an industry so ROI is the only hope of working in Ireland i think but due to the economy I expect to have to work in UK

Mr. G

I have done work experience in this area and really I can't see a lot of jobs there compared to other industries.

There are not a lot of places here, mainly Dublin. You may have to stay in the UK as there are more companies over there. Have a look for internships on the bbc website.

Solair

Most of it's in Dublin, but there's some production activity in via RTE Cork and in TG4 in Galway.

There's a fairly decent BBC operation in Belfast and UTV (ITV's Northern Ireland affiliate), but it's still pretty much just a regional BBC/ITV setup, there's nothing massive being produced up there.

A large % of RTE's content is farmed out to production companies these days, but most of them still use RTE facilities. There is still a good bit of RTE in-house production too though, especially around News and Current Affairs.

Apart from RTE, TV3 and TG4 the only other outlets are tiny community operations like Cork Community TV and Dublin Community TV which are carried on cable and there's some small scale production for various online and satellite channels.

There's also a fairly reasonable ad production industry and there's a decent amount of activity in the film industry too.

Getting a job in TV in Ireland is tough at the moment due to the economic situation which has crunched ad revenues.

Quite honestly, if you're just coming out of university with a broadcast technical qualification, I would try the UK first. You're more likely to get the kind of experience you would need as there's just a massively different scale of industry there and there's also a huge range of international broadcasters based out of London that always need technical people.

You'd probably be better off getting good experience in the UK and then when a suitable job comes up at RTE or TV3 or wherever over here you'd be able to enter at a much higher level and be more likely to get the gig than someone who may only have very local experience.

There are plenty of UK folks who've come into pretty senior positions at RTE.

ONeill2013

Solair wrote: »

Most of it's in Dublin, but there's some production activity in via RTE Cork and in TG4 in Galway.

There's a fairly decent BBC operation in Belfast and UTV (ITV's Northern Ireland affiliate), but it's still pretty much just a regional BBC/ITV setup, there's nothing massive being produced up there.

A large % of RTE's content is farmed out to production companies these days, but most of them still use RTE facilities. There is still a good bit of RTE in-house production too though, especially around News and Current Affairs.

Apart from RTE, TV3 and TG4 the only other outlets are tiny community operations like Cork Community TV and Dublin Community TV which are carried on cable and there's some small scale production for various online and satellite channels.

There's also a fairly reasonable ad production industry and there's a decent amount of activity in the film industry too.

Getting a job in TV in Ireland is tough at the moment due to the economic situation which has crunched ad revenues.

Quite honestly, if you're just coming out of university with a broadcast technical qualification, I would try the UK first. You're more likely to get the kind of experience you would need as there's just a massively different scale of industry there and there's also a huge range of international broadcasters based out of London that always need technical people.

You'd probably be better off getting good experience in the UK and then when a suitable job comes up at RTE or TV3 or wherever over here you'd be able to enter at a much higher level and be more likely to get the gig than someone who may only have very local experience.

There are plenty of UK folks who've come into pretty senior positions at RTE.

It's not the end of the world if I have to work over here for a few years as I'm used to it by now but my main aim is to get back to Ireland. I've always wanted to work in Australia for a while as well though I'm not sure what their industry is like, I wouldn't have the money to go there until 3-4 years anyway. I've done a bit of volunteering with an advertisement production company in Belfast but I've basically tried every company in the island over the past few months and they never let people volunteer.

Solair

Have you considered applying to do one of the BBC Traineeships ?

You've missed the deadline for the Northern Irish "Aim High" programme run by BBC NI / Screen NI which places people all over the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/trainee-schemes/aim-high (Maybe useful next year depending on where you're at)

But there are others coming up all the time and many of them are paid, albeit badly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/trainee-schemes/

Keep an eye on the BBC Careers pages too as they often advertise internships / traineeships especially in regional and international stuff.

Also, maybe consider applying to all the international news production centres in London. They're probably a good place to get studio work. There's quite a bit of technical stuff and magazine programme production at CNN International, CNBC, and various others and they're often open to the idea of interns if you just want to get a foot in the door of the industry.

They are very fast moving TV environments and you'd really get some serious hands-on experience as they've usually got very small crews / tight budgets.

RTE really should offer a proper, open-access traineeship programme too. As it stands, it seems to have access to students from various Irish university programmes, but not a general one like the BBC does.

I find the BBC's approach is far better as it is more open to bringing in new blood and tends to be much more transparent about how it does recruitment at even the most basic entry level stuff.

I have noticed the BBC also tends to be more open to the idea of people coming into production/research from academia and non-broadcast backgrounds e.g. science, engineering, med, etc and that tends to be the kind of stuff that creates really interesting programmes. They're very welcoming to career-changing especially in that kind of role.

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OP, basically my advice is just keep an eye out for a job in Ireland and maybe attend industry events now and then and stuff, keep abreast of news, make your contacts here, but definitely take the opportunity to jump into the British industry with both feet while you're over there and have the contacts!

Ireland will still be here in a few years time when that ideal job does turn up.