College
London College of CommunicationStart date
September 2023Course length
1 year 3 months full time (45 weeks across a four-term model)
MA Television will enable you to develop the skills you need to design and produce great factual television programmes. On this future-facing course, you’ll have opportunities to learn about programme-making from expert industry practitioners.
Why choose this course at London College of Communication
- Factual focus: We combine advanced programme development and production with critical analysis of today’s television industry – exploring what it is, what it means, how it works, and how it’s changing.
- Outstanding facilities: You’ll have opportunities to make ‘live’ television programmes in LCC’s broadcast-standard, multicamera TV Studio.
- Multiple perspectives: You’ll explore key industry issues including television genres and formats; linear and digital; ethical, commercial and legal frameworks; representation, diversity and sustainability; and mixed media production.
- Employability and entrepreneurship: You’ll build the knowledge and screen-storytelling skills to thrive in the TV industry. Developing your entrepreneurial abilities and your industry intelligence, you’ll build your own future-facing career strategy.
- Industry connections: You’ll be taught by leading producers, directors and presenters of features and factual television for broadcasters such as Netflix, BBC One, ITV, Sky and Channel 4.
Course overview
MA Television combines industry intelligence (both intensive research and critical analysis) with programme production and development. Bringing a 360-degree perspective to the business of television, we ask what it means, who it’s for, how it works and what it might become.
On this course, you’ll learn key skills needed to develop and produce factual TV programmes, covering areas including format, narrative, scripting, treatments, proposals, proofs of concept and pitches together with techniques across camera, sound and editing.
In a world where streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and TikTok sit alongside traditional broadcasters like the BBC and established pay networks like Sky and HBO, you’ll also explore the digital revolution’s transformative impact on television production, distribution and consumption, and analyse how TV intersects with social media.
Other units will consider the nature of the TV industry and potential markets for your ideas.
What to expect
- With a focus on factual programmes, you’ll analyse and practice the craft of TV storytelling, exploring the genres and formats driving a global trade in television ideas.
- You’ll explore different production values and techniques, working in teams to develop and produce TV shows while drawing on analysis of contemporary factual genres.
- You’ll approach the practice of programme-making through complimentary, connected and direct exercises of creative imagination and project management across demands on time, resource, cost and quality.
- You’ll be introduced to key issues around the production, use and consumption of factual TV programming through our Media Cultures strand. You’ll consider whether television holds a mirror up to – or indeed shapes – culture, identity and society.
Industry experience and opportunities
You’ll gain valuable experience of real-world contexts, conditions and outcomes of productions using briefs set by/agreed with your tutors.
In your second term, you’ll collaborate with fellow students and/or external partners such as local charities and NGOs, small businesses, artists, or arts organisations.
The Screen School belongs to the BAFTA albert Education Partnership providing graduates with the opportunity to understand sustainability and its professional and personal relevance. You’ll have the opportunity to undertake an optional assignment where you’ll learn about topics including sustainable production solutions, the role of – and opportunities for – responsible businesses, and how to create content with a strategic environmental purpose.
Mode of study
MA Television is offered in full-time mode and runs for 45 weeks over 15 months, with a break over the summer. You will be expected to commit an average of 40 hours per week to your course, including teaching hours and independent study.
Contact us
Register your interest to receive information and updates about studying at UAL.
Contact us to make an enquiry.
Course units
Each course is divided into units, which are credit-rated. The minimum unit size is 20 credits. The MA course structure involves 5 units totalling 180 credits.
Autumn, term 1
Media Cultures Terms 1, 2 and 3 (60 credits)
You’ll be introduced to critical study of the factual television programme industry: not only in terms of its current practice, but also its history and future. You’ll also learn an overview of relevant formats and the underlying story development process.
Production (20 credits)
Working to an editorial brief, you’ll participate in the making of 2 factual television programmes as part of an intensive, practice-based introduction to production techniques. You’ll learn about studio practice in our multi-cam television studio, and about production on location.
Spring, term 2
Production and Media Cultures (continues)
Collaborative unit (20 credits)
You’ll identify, form and develop collaborative working relationships with a range of potential partners or briefs, both across the University and externally. Learn about the concept of talent, produce a treatment and proof of concept, draft a budget and production schedule, and make a competitive pitch to industry standards.
Major Project – Development and Commencement (60 credits across 3 terms)
You’ll research and develop individual pitches, proposals, treatments, business plans, budgets and proofs of concept for your Major Project.
Summer, term 3
Major Project – Pitches, Production and Offline Post Production (continued)
Using your research in development from the Spring term, you’ll develop a presentation for competitive pitching sessions where a selection panel will determine the proposals selected for full production.
You’ll then form teams to begin pre-production of your studio-/location-based Major Project television programme, before working as a production and post-production group to produce a rough cut.
Autumn, term 4
Major Project – Post Production and Reflection (continued)
In your fourth term, you’ll refine the rough cut of your Major Project and reflect on both your development portfolio and your group production: analysing the collaborative process in your team and its outcome, your own role within that, and the market value of your work.
Professional Futures (20 credits)
In this unit, you’ll be coached and mentored in your career planning through areas including: research into employment opportunities or the development of start-ups; networking and approaches to potential employers; the refinement of your CV; and the creation of a calling card portfolio.