It’s 7.45pm Friday night, in 15 mins my Tonight with Trevor ‘Loanbuster’ programme is on. This is always a nervous time, especially when, like today I haven’t actually seen it. As it was being produced from the Manchester Tonight office, I wasn’t able to watch the programme before recording the voice, I just had to read the script (which I had been through in detail to add my thoughts, edit and ‘martin-ify’ the night before, using transcripts). This makes it much more difficult to do the voice, and try and respond to what the pictures show.
As presenter in a programme people think the programme is all yours. Actually there’s a producer who is much more in control. My job is always slightly different as I’m presenter and expert, which means I get, perhaps a good deal more say than some, but still not the final word. Often it’s a compromise, the producers want to tell a story and have exciting ‘pictures’, I always tend to be a bit focused on the ‘saving people money bits’. For example in this film the first seven minutes are about unpaid claims and problems with Loan insurance, I would’ve preferred to go straight into how to save on it. Yet in other areas I do get my way, and Rick who’s producing this is a superb producer and has turned a rather dry subject into a watchable programme.
Well it seemed that way on paper… I’m about to find out whether it does in reality.
