Occupation director: BBC ‘debilitated’ by job fears


29 October, 2009



BBC staff are plagued by “morbid job insecurity”, which is “debilitating” the corporation’s ability to deliver its public service remit, Occupation director Nick Murphy has claimed.


Murphy, who last Saturday collected a Prix Europa for his Iraq war drama, also hit out at Channel 4, claiming that the film that scooped the Prix Europa for best doc would never have got off the ground in the UK.

“There is no way Chemo would have been commissioned by C4 or the BBC and if it was, it would be buried away somewhere at 11pm,” he said. “Everyone is terrified of losing their jobs. People at the BBC have a morbid job insecurity and it is affecting the programmes they commission. It is starting to debilitate public service broadcasting.”

Chemo, by Polish filmmaker Pawel Lozinski, for channel TVP SA, shows life on a cancer ward through a series of literal close-ups of patients’ conversations.

Murphy, who has also made docs including How Art Made The World (BBC2) and Paddington Green (BBC1), said his experience with Occupation had been atypical and that it had been strongly supported by BBC exec Patrick Spence.

The BBC responded that it was “extremely proud” of its public service broadcasting track record.

“We have had Wounded (BBC1), The Trouble With Girls (BBC2), Blood Sweat And Takeaways (BBC3) and The Bulgarian Orphanage (BBC4) at the heart of primetime in the past year alone,” a spokesman said. “These types of pieces receive great critical and audience acclaim, and in some cases have changed the law.”

A C4 spokesman said: “Challenging, thought-provoking documentaries are an intrinsic part of the C4 schedule. The past week’s The Force and Cutting Edge - Katie: My Beautiful Face are testimony to that.”