Managing a broadcaster is DIFFERENT because:

	You're not running a factory
	You don't manufacture a product
	Every day is different
	Your consumers are super-fickle
	The science and the maths are like a magnetic compass, they just point you in the general direction

It means:

·          Managing creative people

·          Managing the riskiest business in the world

·          Adapting to products that sell in completely different ways to other products.

·          Operating in an industry where price depends on “what the market will bear”.

·          Understanding audiences and marketers

·          Managing unpredictable product and volume cycles.

Here are just some of them:

Broadcast management skills are SCARCE

Our industry has trained non-stop for the past years, on an extensive scale, throughout the country.

From about 1998, the burgeoning consumerist culture, the cult of celebrities, and the glamour factor in film and television increased the demand for training. Media, and especially television were perceives as glamorous. A stepping stone to fame and fortune.

But, training concentrated on technicians and crew. By now, there are plenty of trained people available at the level of crew: camera, lighting, sound, editing and general postproduction.

But nothing in broadcast management - absolutely nothing in the fields listed above!

Many of the problems experienced in community TV so far can be put down to a lack of broadcast management training.

There has been no formal hands-on skills-based training in management - lots of theory in management, leadership, strategic planning.  Nothing at the coal-face.

There is NO training (courses, distance education, FET, or even university certificates) in these as pure hands-on skills.

How can you expect to create jobs if managers don't have the skills to employ people.

If untrained people are put into paid jobs, and cannot do the work, this cannot be called “job creation.” Once the station folds due to lack of skills, so these jobs are not sustainable.