Beleaguered television industry workers ask for humane work conditions

However, a state broadcasting regulator is working on setting limits to the average duration of an individual TV series episode. If this is good news for the viewer, it is great news for TV crewmembers, who have long been calling for limitations to episode length, even arguing that the current conditions in the production of a Turkish series violate a number of international labor and workers’ rights conventions.

In January head of the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) Davut Dursun said they had started an initiative to reduce the Turkish standard of 90 minutes for the length of an episode, saying this was mainly intended to address viewer complaints.

Turkish viewers, if they set their minds on following a certain TV series, cannot go to bed before 11 p.m. at the earliest, if they are intent on watching a full episode of their favorite shows. Most shows start at 8 p.m. If there are no commercials, a viewer could be done at 9:30 pm. But eight-minute commercial breaks every 20 minutes stretch the episodes to as late as 11 p.m., and sometimes even later. This is also due to loopholes in the directives that regulate commercial breaks. The eight-minute maximum rule for commercial breaks can easily be bent. Networks often show advertorials or a single commercial outside a commercial break and can get away with this as these are not formally considered commercials in the law.

Given that a director actually has to shoot an episode that lasts for 90 minutes, the exhausting experience of trying to watch a television show that one might otherwise enjoy turns into a trying ordeal as scriptwriters and directors have to add in unnecessary and tedious scenes such as two actors staring at each other for minutes without saying a word, or close-ups on the face of a particular actor for a seemingly endless span of time. Twists and turns that normally might add intrigue to the plot are overshadowed by irrelevant side stories that were shot only to make the end of the 90 minutes. The real victims of the 90-minute production torment, however, are the crewmembers. This came to public attention only after Dursun spoke of complaints regarding episode lengths.

Indeed, there have even been deaths in the sector as most members of the crew have to work for as many as 17 hours a day. Zehra Sezgin and Tülay Ergildi, two members of the production team of the television series “Sonbahar” (Fall), died in a car crash which industry representatives say was caused by over-exhaustion. In 2009 Elif Develi, an extra hired for the FoxTV television series Ömre Bedel (Worth A Life), collapsed on the set and nearly died. She survived, but has suffered brain damage-induced amnesia and couldn’t recognize her children for a long time. Assistant director Abdullah Baykal, who had a heart attack on the set while shooting, died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Actor Yaman Tarcan committed suicide, which unions suspect is also tied to problems related with working conditions.

In December of last year, the Scriptwriters Association (SENDER) held a demonstration in İstanbul’s Taksim Square to attract attention to the problem. About 500 scriptwriters, actors, directors and studio workers gathered, carrying banners that read “The workers are here, where are the bosses?” In a press statement they read out, the demonstrators called on the administrators of television channels to “have some mercy.” They demanded eight-hour workdays and series episodes that lasted no more than 45 minutes.

Salaries and social security

The unreasonably long work hours are only part of the problem for crewmembers who are currently not protected under a law specifically targeted for the movie and television series industry. Although sometimes popular actors might earn astronomical amounts per episode, most of the crew members are grossly underpaid.

RTÜK head Dursun pointed this out saying, “When they pay actors high salaries, the producers can shoot for longer hours.” He said that the cost of an episode that lasts about 45 minutes was the same for a 90-minute episode for producers. “So say, if an actor earns TL 30,000 per episode, in fact, this turns out to be for two episodes because of the duration of an episode. This works well for the producer and the broadcaster, it helps them to pay less.” He said the pay per episode for lead or main actors should be taken to more reasonable amounts. “When they get to shoot for longer hours, a low-ranking crew member works longer hours, but there is no improvement in his salary. They usually work for moderate salaries such as TL 1,000 or TL 1,500 a month.”

As comforting as it might be to know that RTÜK is aware of the exploitation on the set, cinema and television workers are still struggling to improve their working conditions. They demand that the social security benefits and working conditions in the television sector be adapted to match European Union standards. In addition to being underpaid and overworked, crewmembers usually enjoy no social security benefits. According to unions, only 30 percent of crewmembers have social security coverage.

Imposing legal restrictions on the duration of an episode might curtail the savageness of the jungle rules at work in this sector, but the industry still desperately needs new legislation to protect its workers from the networks’ avarice for profits.