Advanced Television

BBC has employed 6,000 unpaid interns

June 6, 2011

By Chris Forrester

Amidst growing political calls from senior UK government figures for all UK-employed interns to be paid a minimum wage it has emerged that the BBC has ‘employed’ more than 6,000 unpaid interns since 2007. The BBC terms them as “volunteers” and admits that they have zero rights, and that there is no available budget to pay them.

A BBC source, quoted by the Daily Telegraph, said: “These interns do a valuable job – they really help out with any number of projects and they do it all for nothing in the hope of getting a job at the end of it.” Data obtained by the newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the BBC had employed 6,283 interns and volunteers since 2007.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Policy