11. Memorandum submitted by the National
Union of Journalists at Meridian Television
Once again we know you have been invited to
meet the Meridian managing director, Lindsay Chariton, and we
should simply like to take this opportunity to make sure you are
fully informed of events from the staff point of view beforehand.
You are, of course, already aware that the "no
journalists jobs to go" line that was being delivered by
Meridian last year is transparently not the case in the proposals
that have been put forward.
Indeed, the attached plan for the new Meridian,
(as compared to the existing version), has been drawn up by the
unions because the company version over eight A4 pages is so unclear
and inexplicit, it could not be useful to anyone except the managers
who want to implement it!
We fear it is a superficial plan, with no staffing
structure and, worryingly, with no reference to the European Working
Time Regulations which are the only safeguards against staff working
dangerously long hours. For example, the journey times for presenters,
who we are told will be out with the satellite truck every day
of the week, could be five hours a day, as the Hampshire base
is 110 miles away from Maidstone, (never mind Thanet or Dover).
We believe the plans do not allow for any staffing
backfill ie for weekends and holidays. You probably know that
we have to adhere to strict Health and Safety regulations with
all jobs we cover being risk assessed—there is no allowance
for this.
In the layout for the new studios in Hampshire,
there is a studio partition—but no one has worked out where
it will go—to the side is an atrium, underneath is someone
else's company and above is the roof!
It would be fascinating to hear where in this
country/Europe/the rest of the world a television news service
is being run along the lines set out by Granada with Meridian
the blueprint? We believe the Shopping Channel on cable will give
you an idea of the standards set by the proposed technology in
the UK.
You will probably also be aware of the huge
importance of a library of stories, not least because we have
a legal obligation to record all output. We have up to 5,000 hours
of library material at Maidstone alone, and there is no provision
for this to go forward. There is no space allowed in the Hampshire
site. If this is to be put onto disc, it will still take 5,000
hours to do—and as many if not more hours for Southampton
and Newbury too—and no one has even scheduled work on this
into the future plans.
There is now talk of Newbury and Southampton
going first into the brave new world, with Maidstone as back up.
But after that we will all be going it alone. LNN which use a
Sony server based system similar to what is wanted for Hampshire
saw the system crash for three days this Christmas—fortunately
they could revert to the tape-based system. We would not have
that option. And this proves as we have stated before that the
problem with this technology is that it crashes just like anyone's
own home computer, but with rather more public consequences.
We hope you'll be interested in our latest viewing
figures for the week beginning 14 December. The BBC from it's
all-singing, all-dancing top of the range production centre in
Tunbridge Wells was 15%—Meridian in the south east was 34%.
How often do we have to say it?—it's not the technology,
it's the people and the programme they make.
We hope you can continue to address these issues
and win an assurance that Meridian's successful South East programme
will continue to be broadcast from Kent, where it should be.
15 January 2004
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