The Talent Industry

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 1-11

3. Understanding and Conceptualising Talent

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 13-41

4. The Evolution of the Television Talent Industry

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 43-73

5. Managing Talent in the Digital Multi-platform Age

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 75-96

6. BBC, ITV and Channel 4: Talent in the Digital Environment

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 97-130

7. Talent, Multi-channel Networks (MCN) and the YouTube Generation

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 131-157

8. Television Talent in the Twenty-First Century

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 159-173

9. Endpiece

   • Raymond Boyle

   Pages 175-186

10. Back Matter

    Pages 187-212

    PDF

​This book explores how the digital multiplatform delivery of television is affecting the role performed by cultural intermediaries responsible for talent identification and development.  Drawing on original research from key stakeholders across the television and social video sectors such as broadcasters, commissioning editors and talent agents, it investigates whether the process of digitization is offering new pathways to capture and nurture a diverse talent base within the UK television industry. It also provides an in-depth study of how the term ‘talent’ has historically been interpreted and understood within the UK television industry through the BBC and commercial PSB’s, such as ITV and Channel 4. The Talent Industry investigates how the traditional gatekeepers of talent in television are changing and examines the key role of talent agencies in managing and promoting contemporary on and off-screen talent in the digital age. 

• Talent agents
• BBC
• digital
• multiplatform
• ITV
• PSB
• social media
• agency
• media
• industry

“In this vital and timely study of the role of agents and other intermediaries in the development of ‘talent’ in television, Boyle provides us with a behind-the-scenes look at the people who find the  people we see on our TV screens, and the people who work behind them. We get a detailed insight into how ‘talent’ is nurtured and who has access to work in the new multi-channel and multi-platform television ecology. An important and enjoyable read.” (Milly Williamson, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

• Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

  Raymond Boyle

Raymond Boyle is Professor of Communications at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He has authored/co-authored a number of books including Sports Journalism (2006); Power Play (2009), The Television Entrepreneurs (2012) and The Rise and Fall of the UK Film Council (2015).

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