A Day in the Life of…. a Listings Writer

In TV and radio, a lot of thought goes into the production of the show itself – a drama’s script and actors, a documentary’s subject matter and presenters, a chat show’s topic of discussion. But people tend not to think about how all that information gets out there into the world so that you, the audience, can decide what you want to watch or listen to. That’s where a Listings Writer comes in! Because let’s face it; all that effort of making the show itself would go to waste if nobody actually knew about it.

So, what do we do, exactly? Well, we provide descriptions of every show in the schedule to a whole host of outlets, from hard-copy press and electronic programme guides like Sky, Freeview and Virgin Media, to broadcasters’ own listings websites and playback services.

The way it works is that broadcasters will send us raw data like times and show titles, presenter names, producers, cast and so on. It’s our job to massage that raw data into something engaging and interesting that audiences actually want to read and, most importantly, makes them want to watch or listen to a show.

Here’s a little glimpse into a day in my life as a Listings Writer.

09.30AM: When we first come in, we double-check through the overnight changes. You might not realise it, but changes to the schedule happen all the time, sometimes as late as minutes before a show is broadcast, or even during. Changes might include a new episode title, an updated producer credit, a more detailed description, or even changes for legal issues. Whatever the change is, it’s critical that it’s actioned immediately.

10.00AM: Once we’ve checked the overnights, we settle into building the week’s schedules. That means creating detailed databases of all the shows on all the channels on all the days, usually three weeks in advance, and sometimes even farther ahead than that. As you can imagine, when you’re working that far ahead of transmission, there often isn’t much detail to go on, so we use a lot of generic descriptions to develop the first draft.

Each of the Listings Writers has primary responsibility for one channel or service. My main responsibility is BBC Radio 4 Extra, a station that almost exclusively plays repeats of old shows from the archives, all the way back to Hancock’s Half Hour and The Goon Show from the 1950s and 1960s. So a lot of my job is hunting through the database to find the right shows and fit them into the schedules where they should be.

However, it’s never just a ‘slot in and go’ job! We have to correct spelling, grammar and punctuation; readability is paramount. We are the last line of defence before listings go out into the world, and we don’t want anyone spotting any errors! It physically hurts me to see spelling mistakes in other people’s professional output, so I would never want to be the one committing such a horror. Apostrophes in plurals… seriously, I have nightmares!

03.00PM: More changes come in, as they have every hour throughout the day. At this time of day, they will probably contain more specific descriptions to replace the generic descriptions I put in earlier. After checking and correcting as always, I save the files and they go flying out into the ether. In most cases, the system knows to automatically send any updates, but you can’t always rely on that 100 percent. So I always check that any major changes have actually worked by, for example, checking the broadcaster’s website. We also create the series links so that when you press “Record Series” on your PVR, it actually does it.

05.30PM: Last-minute changes done, we hand over to the overnight crew who manage the changes after hours. They have a lot of other things to worry about though, which is why we go through it all again when we come in the next morning, just to make sure everything is perfect. After all, nobody likes a dubious colon.

Martyn Dunn, Listings Writer.