Award-winning writer Lisa Holdsworth appeared at Leeds Trinity’s Journalism and Media Week to
discuss the struggles faced by young writers in the television industry.
Ms Holdsworth made her early career debut with the ITV show ‘Fat Friends’ in 2000, before going
on to write episodes for ‘A Discovery of Witches’, ‘Call the Midwife’, ‘New Tricks’ and more. She
also won the RTS Yorkshire Best Writer award for an episode of ‘Waterloo Road’ in 2011.
In her talk, titled ‘It Starts With The Writer’, Holdsworth reflected on how the TV industry has
changed since she began writing.
In the past decade, the TV industry has made a shift towards high-end production shows and
away from low-budget ones. As a result, already-famous writers are more likely to be offered work
than new writers.
“That’s where my concern is,” Ms Holdsworth said. “If everything is $2million an episode, no one
will take a risk, so you will use someone you know is bankable. You will use a writer who is a
household name—there’s a handful of them—and it will be the same people over and over again.”
She also said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could risk the futures of young writers in TV.
AI scripting would use algorithms based on writers’ previous work to generate new content.
According to her, this “bulls**t” would discourage companies from hiring young writers, and make
for bad television, since it cannot produce comedy or heart-felt emotion.
“Generative AI relies on sticking the work of other people into it and popping out something
unoriginal, just a rehash, at the other end. It will kill television, if that’s what television becomes,”
Ms Holdsworth said. “We need the next revolution in television. AI is not going to provide that.”
Amidst the introduction of such technology and the narrow opportunities available, Ms
Holdsworth held out hope for the next generation of writers. She also advocated for more
LGBTQ+, female, black and disabled voices in the TV industry.
“The way we talk about young people in this country is disgraceful, because there are amazing
young people in every corner of every town,” she said. “We concentrate on the ones who do
terrible things, when we’ve got intelligent, emotionally experienced young people out there who
really do want to see change in the world.”
“I hope that our industry responds well by opening the doors and being a little bit more caring
towards new talent,” Ms Holdsworth added.
She has recently written for Channel 4’s upcoming show ‘Dance School’, which follows a group of
young dancers in Leeds as they navigate their friendships, lives and futures. Through the show,
Ms Holdsworth hopes to demonstrate the potential for young people to do amazing things,
regardless of their backgrounds.
“It comes from there,” Ms Holdsworth said, putting a hand on her heart, “knowing what a
character is going to do and say, and how you’re going to make an audience cry, or punch the air,
or make them angry. It comes from something in there.”