The Post, Commissioning Executive, BBC
The Post Holder: Mary McKeagney
The ability to multi-task and juggle various projects at the same time is central to Mary McKeagney’s role as a Commissioning Executive.
Give a brief outline of your career to date.
It began with a baptism of fire at Sunday Times Ireland before I joined UTV as a researcher and worked my way up to Producer. I bounced around from UTV to BBC to RTÉ and back again via a couple of independent companies working as a Producer/Director on every conceivable genre of programmes before joining BBC Current Affairs for about a decade. Finally I moved across to Factual Programmes as a Series Producer, then Executive Producer and ultimately into the BBC Commissioning Department about two years ago.
As Commissioners, we get pitched ideas from independent companies and BBC in-house on a regular basis, from which we choose the projects we think are the most exciting and will best serve our audience. Once commissioned, we work with producers in an oversight role through production until delivery.
What was your favourite subject at school?
English. But I got side-tracked into three science A-levels and it took me a while to get myself back into the arts.
Did you go on to further/higher education, if so what did you study and where?
I changed courses several times before doing a degree in Drama and Theatre at Trinity College in Dublin. I had started in Science and then Engineering before dropping out of Trinity the first time around. I somehow managed to get myself onto a radio training course that BBC Belfast was running for six months, before going back to university the following year. It was a process of slowly working out what I wanted to do and I know so many 18-year-olds find themselves facing the same dilemma. Personally I think having to choose just three subjects for A-level aged 16 is limiting. The wider subject choices offered by the Leaving Cert and Scottish Highers until you’re eighteen seems like a much better system. After Trinity, I did a Masters in journalism at DCU.
How did you get into your area of work?
After a longish placement in The Sunday Times – the highlight of which was a front page story about Germans making sausages from Irish donkeys – I interviewed for a job as researcher on UTV’s The Kelly Show and worked there for a couple of years. I made education programmes, music programming, young people’s TV and entertainment shows for various stations before reverting back to journalism and factual TV, first with UTV and then BBC.
Is this what you always wanted to do?
Like a lot of people who end up in the media, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I wanted to do. As a child I ran my own paper called ‘The Lurgan Liar’ which looking back, should have been a clue. I knew I loved writing and putting on shows, and did a lot of this in college but I didn’t equate that with making TV shows for quite a while.
Were there any particular essential qualifications or experience needed?
My first job asked for education to degree level but not in any specific subject. People think you need a media degree to work in broadcasting but I’d recommend doing a good degree in a subject you love and learning the technical bit on the job.
Are there alternative routes into the job?
One hundred per cent. The media tribe is wide and varied with people coming in from all directions – local papers, university, training apprenticeships, etc and more recently from the world of digital media and podcasting. I’d say the most important thing is to be able to demonstrate by whatever means that you’re curious enough about the world to rock up and knock a stranger’s front door.
What are the main personal skills your job requires?
Good judgement, creativity, decent communication and writing skills, organisation and an ability to multi-task.
What does a typical day entail?
I have about 20 series or projects on my slate in various stages of production at any one time, so there are a lot of meetings with production companies and in-house producers, viewing programmes at various stages of completion and sending back notes, liaising with the press office, programme legal advice or editorial policy on issues that arise, or having strategy and planning meetings within our own Commissioning department.
What are the best and most challenging aspects of the job?
One of the best things about this job is when something you’ve made really lands and you overhear someone on the bus or in a shop talking about something you helped get on the telly.
At the moment the biggest challenge is getting audiences to our content in a new media landscape where people have so many fantastic viewing options. Everyone is fighting to win over younger audiences and clearly we have major competitors in streamers like Netflix, Youtube, Amazon and Disney. The upside however is, with the focus on BBC iPlayer and co-commissioning with BBC network, local producers have more opportunity to reach way bigger audiences right across the UK, and Northern Ireland production companies are doing that successfully and in spades.
Why is what you do important?
Because… public service broadcasting.
How has Covid-19 impacted your business/role?
It was very difficult to make programmes during lockdown, which was frustrating because people were stuck at home and desperate for new content. Since then, I would say the Covid viewing habits have remained, and fewer people are watching linear TV and turning instead to BBC iPlayer and the streamers.
What advice would you give anyone looking to follow a similar career path?
Be flexible and don’t stay in any one job for too long.
If you weren’t doing this what would you like to do?
I’d like to write crime fiction.
What is the one piece of advice you would give to yourself on your first day?
Get yourself a decent work/life balance. It’s only telly.
Describe your ideal day off.
A big walk with the dog and then a boozy lunch with all the people I never get time to see. Home to the fire and a good four episodes of whatever the family is currently watching, that I’ll fall sleep for half of.
Mary is also a member of the Belfast Media Festival organising committee which runs a two day series of free events every November in The Mac for those interested in a career in the creative industries www.belfastmediafestival.co.uk
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