How TV is run by sexist pigs who only want one thing (and it’s not ratings): The shocking inside account from a former TV executive
By Samantha Brick
The meeting I was in with one of my bosses was coming to a close. He was a very well known TV executive and we were in the midst of planning millions of pounds worth of satellite programming that would go out to ten million viewers the following year.
I respected him and paid close attention to everything he said. But, as I was getting up to leave, he stopped me in my tracks.
'You know,' he mused. 'I'd love to see you in a Victorian lace nightdress. I love to see the outline of a woman's figure in white cotton, the way her breasts move. So, what do you normally like to wear in bed?'
'I don't think I want to continue this conversation,' I replied calmly but firmly, reaching for my paperwork and heading for the door.
The incident happened a few years back when I was in my early 30s - and, at the time, I was already on a six-figure salary as head of entertainment at a top television channel.
This wasn't the sort of thing I expected at my level - any level, in fact - but having worked in TV for ten years by then, sadly, I wasn't shocked. For it certainly wasn't the first time I'd been propositioned in such a way.
But, while I knew I was tough enough to shrug off such vile remarks over a glass of wine with the girls - as I'd had to do a number of times before - I was increasingly frustrated.
For regardless of my own single-mindedness, this incident was just one more reminder that the power in TV lies in the hands of men, who can do what they want, when they want, and are answerable to no one but themselves.
So, when I read about the report into ageism at the BBC by former newsreader Selina Scott - who successfully sued Channel Five for age discrimination in 2008 - where she claimed that women on television (unlike men) are charmlessly ousted when they reach their sell-by date, I know that the inequalities she is referring to are only the tip of a very large iceberg.
The TV industry is a world that ruthlessly allows women to be exploited - and the men to behave like Lothario characters straight out of a salacious Jackie Collins novel.
For while I cannot deny that television is an exciting, glamorous industry that pays extremely well, the personal cost to me - and women just like myself - is high.
Sexual harassment is rife, and in the two decades I worked in the business I have seen women sacked when they rejected advances from their bosses on nights out.
I have listened to men gossip about the size of my colleagues' breasts, and have even been ordered to hire a woman unqualified for a job simply because my boss fancied her.
And I have witnessed how men have taken advantage of women both in front of the camera and behind it, with scant regard for the women they are exploiting. Make no mistake; the viewers are very far from their minds.
And that's why, depressing as i found it, I wasn't surprised when a recent survey for Broadcast, the TV industry's newspaper, claimed nearly one in three women in TV has experienced sexual harassment, and nearly one in two has suffered sexual discrimination.
So, why is it that TV has become such a breeding ground for predatory men - and such a struggle for women?
First, unlike many other professions such as banking, medicine or accountancy, there are no qualifications necessary to enter the world of television.
In fact, as I've witnessed, the decision about whether or not someone gets hired can often rest on whether, if you're a woman, you're considered sexually attractive enough.
I know, from personal experience, that the women who have made it to the top in television have done so because they work twice as hard as their male peers.
They will have rebuffed sexual advances, put up with less pay than their male counterparts, even sacrificing (as I did) starting a family in order to protect their career.
My first job in TV was at the then London Weekend television in 1993 - as a researcher in the current affairs department.
It was a dream I'd had since I was in my early teens and I'd spent five years studying to get there, culminating with a degree in media studies. naively, i assumed this was my ticket to work.
However, never once has a single one of the men who's ever hired me bothered to ask about my academic qualifications - and I routinely found myself, as a woman, in the minority.
LWT was a well known male enclave, with men in charge from top to bottom. Melvyn Bragg, who presented the South Bank Show for decades, was in charge of the arts department and entertainment was the domain of Nigel Lythgoe, later to be the brains behind ITV's Popstars (one of the original reality TV shows) and now a judge on the BBC's So You Think You Can Dance.
Out of more than 25 senior producers only two were women. they were both middle-aged, much older and more experienced than many of the men promoted to the same role. But men, you see, ruled.
We women researchers (and there were plenty of us in the lower roles) often wondered why - because our male producers would turn up late, slope off early and plonk most of the work on our desks. even esteemed names such as Trevor Phillips, then a producer and presenter on the award winning the London Programme - who by no means behaved badly, unlike some of the other men in the department - would, on occasion, nod off in important programming meetings. this left more work for us (mostly female, of course) researchers.
'Current affairs' was the appropriate name for the department. men i worked with, and i include those behind the camera as well as in front of it, would habitually use their position to coerce female secretaries and researchers into compromising positions - getting them drunk, insisting they stay late, bullying them into going out with them. the men were brazen.
Many of the married presenters conducted affairs in the office after hours. When one household name was caught in flagrante by a cleaner, he was so concerned about being recognised he protected himself rather than the young secretary he being was with — throwing a wastepaper basket over his head the moment they were disturbed.
In 1994, only a year after I joined, lad culture exploded when the magazine Loaded launched. Unfortunately, my male colleagues took this as a sign to unleash their
inner- bloke — if they weren’t already bullish enough.
At the same time, staff positions were being phased out and short term contracts were the new model of employment. If you wanted your contract renewed — you had to be part of ‘the gang’. And the ‘gang’ was not office-based.
Who knew?
‘Alpha’ women earn up to £40,000 more in their working lives than their ‘nicer’ female colleagues, says a study
One male producer I heard of insisted his female employees socialised with him and his male friends every Friday night. He regularly invited his mates to the bar to take their pick from his young, vulnerable, anxious-to-please female staff.
And, one evening, another boss put me under pressure to get to know one friend of his rather better than I wanted to. I refused, and not long after I left the company.
The laddish nature of the department meant that the disparity continued among male
and female presenters as well.
While male presenters I knew (including the less famous sibling of one of today’s best-known stars) got away with bedding staff members and drinking excessively over lunch, Mary Nightingale — a high-profile news reader — was witheringly referred to as ‘Mary Nightingpain’, just because she was a professional, with high standards.
The fact that I was involved as a witness in a sexual harassment case just three years into my career didn’t come as a surprise. One of our junior female researchers was sent away on a job with a middle-aged producer and they’d been placed in a housetogether on their own.
He tried it on with her, she rejected him. Shortly after she got sacked for below-standard work.
I was a witness, as I was also involved in the filming on location. Fortunately, LWT settled before the case came to court. But the female member of staff who was sacked never worked in TV again.
The guy? Well, he did. But I shouldn’t have been surprised, as this sort of behaviour went much higher up. One of my best friends had a memorable encounter with Nigel Lythgoe.
She was a 20-something researcher at the time. He took her out to an upmarket
restaurant. Over dinner, she felt it was quite clear what he wanted from her.
Even though she believed it could have had stellar consequences for her career, she ultimately declined and her career in entertainment faltered.
But it’s not just in a large organisation such as ITV that men run rife. As I continued to climb the career ladder, I continued to hear nightmare stories about the male owners of private television companies who controlled their staff anyway they wanted to.
One friend, now the head of a development department at a major TV channel, would tell me in tears about one male boss making constant comments about the size of her breasts.
And one well-known female TV presenter told me, horrified, about the married executive who launched himself on her in the back of a taxi cab.
‘I discovered you,’ he reasoned, pawing at her. He was genuinely appalled when she rebuffed his advances, and ensured that she never worked for him again.
My own career trajectory was down to sheer hard work and, despite the rejection of my
boss’s friend during my time at ITV, by 1999, at the age of 29, I was appointed head of entertainment at Sky One.
I was optimistic about a new beginning, but I was horrified to discover the bullying and in-fighting.
Female presenters were treated like fodder and I often felt like a pimp organising lunches for my then bosses with eager, young, unknowns at the time including Kate
Thornton and Kirsty Gallacher.
I had to stifle a giggle when I heard on more than one occasion, ‘I think she really fancied me.’
Even after I left Sky and started looking for new work, I was asked outrageous and
illegal questions at my job interviews — for example whether, at 32, I was thinking
of starting a family, whether I wanted to get married, whether I had a boyfriend on the scene.
A few years after leaving Sky, I became involved with another sexual harassment case in which four women, three of whom I had employed, filed a complain against one powerful executive (the things he suggested are not suitable for print here).
I had no choice but to relay the allegations to someone much higher up than me. His response shocked me to the core: ‘Oh God Sam, can we not just forget about this? You know his wife is pregnant, maybe that’s why he needs to get rid of his sexual
frustrations.'
This man only pursued it when I calmly explained the company had a legal and moral duty to protect its employees.
I no longer work in television — my dreams of an all-female TV company, where women could work safely and be respected for the professionals they are, crumbled
when my company folded in 2007, as the recession took hold.
To this day, my failure in that respect still saddens me, because it’s not just ageism in television, but rampant sexism that threatens to destroy the careers of thousands of talented women.
Yet, for many, the dream of working in TV continues. Take my teenage step-sister,
Victoria, who wants to follow in my footsteps. She’s planning to do a media degree, naively believing that’s what matters.
My advice has been not to bother — because, as a good looking 18-year-old, if she’s interviewed by a man, he won’t care one jot about her qualifications.
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