When is a deal not a deal?

When it is made by text apparently.

Freelancers are well used to companies not issuing contracts before they start work on a project, which is pretty understandable given the dysfunctional way the commissioning process works in TV, often resulting in late bookings for production crew.

As a result outlines of agreements are often given in a variety of ways - by Whatsapp, email, text or sometimes just by word of mouth. And what everyone does, when deals are done in this way, is to stick to what has been agreed. Because a deal is a deal as they say.

Not so when it comes to ITV it seems though. The company is currently making a sixth series of its drama show, Grace and hired a runner to do some work for them, with the pay and expenses all agreed by text message. All fine apparently until the runner in question put in their invoice, at which point the ground started shifting somewhat with the company (producer Matthew Hamilton and production manager Ryan Whitehouse) then claiming that “we aren't able to honour information sent over in a text message” and that the expenses agreed would not be paid in full after all.

A pretty dysfunctional way to behave, not least because the sums involved are tiny in terms of the budget for a high profile drama and where there is such a power differential between the large company and the small individual freelancer.

It seems then that ITV (or at least this corner of it) are not to be trusted when they use anything other than a signed and dated contract of agreement. Which means they better start issuing those well ahead of the time if they require a freelancer’s services.

Freelancers be warned!