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Nine bones GTV9 production staff

Nine axes production staff in a shift from permanent to contract staff.

The era of production staff being employed on a fulltime basis at television networks continues to dwindle. With parent company PBL Media facing enormous debt, even before the woes of the economic downturn, Channel Nine has shed production and studio staff at GTV9 in Melbourne.

The Age writes that “less than 10” full-time employees had been offered Nine redundancies, which had been ‘accepted by almost all those approached.’

TV Tonight understands there are more part-time employees who have also gotten the chop.

The cuts follows other staff, including some with decades of service, being let go during the year. Nine’s strategy is to utilise their skills on a project-only basis. PBL Media recently cut magazine staff too.

“We are proposing in the future that our workforce will include more run-of-show people rather than full-time employees,” said executive director Jeffrey Browne.

“I think the days of companies being able to carry high levels of fixed-term employees during times of low production are coming to an end.”

He said the “back-of-house” staff could be re-employed when shows were being produced.

“I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t any business right now in the world that wasn’t looking at its costs and trying to work out how to do things more efficiently.”

Nine CEO David Gyngell recently said, “While on my watch, we won’t be cutting our costs to damage our content.”

Source: The Age

8 Responses

  1. “”Nine CEO David Gyngell recently said, “While on my watch, we won’t be cutting our costs to damage our content.””

    i think he should have thought about it a bit more before he said it. now people are going to catch him out and pull the “dishonest, untrustworthy, liar” card out every time they go against it. which will probably be alot.

    eg. as David said the other day: where is sunday?

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