Twenty Twenty Television

Twenty Twenty Television is one of the leading producers of factual programmes in the British Independent Production Sector. The company grew out of Channels 4’s first flagship current affairs show, 20/20 Vision and since 1982 it has specialised in quality productions for broadcast television.

Best known for its current affairs and investigative documentary output, it receives substantial peaktime audiences for its weekly x 25-minute current affairs series, The Big Story, commissioned by Carlton for the ITV network.

Its producers and crews have gained consistent critical acclaim for powerful and hard hitting programmes, winning the Royal Television Society Journalism Awards in 1995 and 1990 for Dispatches - War Crimes File and Island of Outcasts respectively. More recently It produced An Inspector Calls, a 6 x 25-minute observational series and numerous 1 x 50-minute special editions of Cutting Edge, which have attracted nominations for RTS, BAFTA and INDIE awards.

The company is currently rated twelfth in the Televisual Magazine survey of UK Broadcast Independents.

Twenty Twenty Television is based in London’s Kentish Town from where it employs fifteen permanent research, production and administration staff. Freelance producers, cameramen and production teams are brought in on a per project basis. These are ‘indie’ productions, commissioned by Channel 4, ITV and, most recently, Channel 5. Around thirty projects are typically in progress at any one time which means production managers must rely heavily on information technology. <br>

IT Strategy

Manual accounting books were used until five years ago when the company purchased its first computerised system. However, this system - a mid range PC based package Pegasus - proved itself to be unsuitable for the industry within its first year. It was unable to produce the monthly project cost reports for broadcasters or the level of project information required by Twenty Twenty management. Unreliable and too complex, it was scrapped at a cost of £13,000 and the company reverted to manual books, which fortunately it had continued to run in parallel.

Managing director Mike Whittaker and chief accountant Omar Hemeida agreed that they would become disadvantaged if production accounts were not computerised. But, because of their experience with the PC system, which according to Whittaker was a “complete disaster”, they were extremely cautious.

During a visit to Apple Expo November 1994, they were ‘surprised’ to discover an accounts system that was designed to run on Apple Macintosh computers and which, at first glance, appeared to offer the type of project control they were looking for. They already used ‘Macs’ for word processing, off line editing and image manipulation for graphics. In Whittaker's opinion, it was a logical step to put production accounts on Macs too, if the software was ‘up to the job.’

They returned to the trade stand and requested a quick demonstration. What they saw impressed them. Whittaker said: “The main attraction was that it’s Mac based and that it was available in modules, which means we did not have to buy the entire thing outright so there was no huge commitment if it all went wrong.”

They bought a few modules for a few hundred pounds - in stark contrast to the money wasted on the previous system - then added payroll, then multi-user licences. They grew the system cautiously but found it did not let them down.

On-site training sessions were purchased for two staff, Hemeida and computer manager Sean Lavery. They required four days to get them up to speed with accounts, project control and payroll. In turn, they trained the production managers. Training time successfully doubled as consultancy time, which means that Hemeida could write the exact reports needed for monthly meetings with the broadcasters.

Service from a local system reseller was very good. Their contact has not needed to visit them since no problems have been reported for a while. Recently, however, Lavery has left the company which “leaves us feeling a bit vulnerable from a software point of view,” said Whittaker, stressing the importance he places on staff.

The payroll system helps Hemeida to process and track pay for the fifteen permanent staff, who are paid monthly by BOBS. It also has, according to Whittaker “reduced tedious year end nonsense, reporting on salaries and expenses and doing P60 forms.”

“In our type of business, with so much going on the whole time, you need good control,” said Whittaker. “It all comes down to having the right people and the right tools for those people,” he said. “Our people seem to like using it. Hemeida is particularly good at keeping tabs on the finances. He checks everything. Access is good at delivering the reports we want when we need them, which makes our life a hell of a lot easier,” said Whittaker.

“Producers just want to get on making programmes and not spend time worrying about their accounts. I don’t know what other production companies are using, but I know this software has got what it takes to do especially well in the indie sector. I’d recommend it to anyone.”
“I trust it and the figures produced on it,” said Whittaker.

Four production managers successfully handle the budgets and costs for over 30 projects. Monthly budget reports for broadcasters are created easily by exporting electronic data, held in 36 cost centre schedules, out to spreadsheets. An Excel macro simply moves the data to appropriate columns to finish in minutes a cost report, suitable to broadcasters, for each and every production in progress.

The costs of implementing the system have been very low compared to other systems. Four low end Macintosh’s, linked to a file server through an Ethernet network, are used specifically for accounts. The server, also a fairly low end Mac, supports an external hard drive where the accounts datafile is located and shared by the users.

Security features within the software means that production managers make project cost information available on a read-only basis to non-financial staff.