International TV Co-Editor
Late Payments | Alex, Videographer | Freelancer Club
EXCLUSIVE: British producer OR Media, which has made programmes for the Saudi state broadcaster and the BBC, including the documentary Path of Blood starring Tom Hollander, has laid off 14% of its workforce and failed to pay freelancers, which sources say could amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Deadline has spoken to half a dozen current and former OR Media employees, who paint a chaotic picture of a company in a difficult financial position. We've also seen emails from CFO Andrew Wallace to senior staff in which he says "we're having difficult conversations with a lot of people" and urges them to "be alert to the risk of malicious rumours."
An OR Media spokesperson blamed the move on a "major" unnamed UK customer, which announced it would "significantly and immediately scale back its operations." "While it did not dispute its debt to us or its desire to continue ordering films from us in the future, it unilaterally imposed an extremely tight payment plan on us," the spokesperson added. "We are in the process of signing a number of new contracts and these will allow us to return to our normal payment terms in the very near future, redeploy staff and hopefully repair some of the damage that has been done."
