Television Presenter, Producer and Writer
Freelance

Tim Lovejoy

00:02 I’m Tim Lovejoy, I’m a TV Presenter, I’m a TV Producer, I’m a TV Writer and now I own my own internet channel, which is kind of cool.

00:17 At school I really enjoyed sport. I found lessons really dull. I didn’t find it that hard, but it just didn’t stimulate me, and I really regret it now, because I think it would be really nice to go on and do further education, and even though I’ve got quite a good job, I think I could have done something better with myself.

00:40 My dad was an accountant who ended up working in personnel in a big company and my mum was a sales woman who got in the computer… the start of the computer boom, she would sell programs to companies.

00:56 I always had this assumption that one day someone was just going to come out of nowhere and say, hey Tim, here’s your dream job, and it’s just going to happen. And then one day I realised, mmm, I don’t think that is going to happen. It was back in the eighties so I was money obsessed like everyone in the eighties. So it was like, how can I make money? So I got into finance and started flogging mortgages. I think I was the youngest ever sales associate at Allied Dunbar at the time when I joined.

01:19 But I hated it. I hated every minute of it and I didn’t make money because I found it really hard at my age trying to sell to people who were a lot older than me the biggest commitment of their lives. I think they used to look at me and go, why’s he selling me a mortgage? And I should be with someone with… older with glasses and a beard coming to sell me a mortgage.

01:45 I think the thing which annoys me the most and when I decided to work in television, was people saying, you can’t do it. People laughed at me for saying I was going to be a TV presenter. I knew I had communication skills, so I was like, well I’m going to go and do it and, I had to do all sorts of jobs whilst I was trying to make it as a TV presenter. I was doing… I was working for free during the days at any TV company I could get my hands on, and then at night I’d do bar jobs or I’d try and go on tour flogging t-shirts with bands, called a swag man. I used to phone people and write people and ask them for advice all the time, and Peter Powell, who’s an agent, saw my show reel and said to me, you should go and find yourself some production work. I think he was basically saying to me, you’re not a good enough presenter, go behind the camera.

02:33 It was the best advice I ever had, and so I learnt how to do researching and producing as well. So I basically managed to blag my way more or less onto MTV to cover a bit at MTV at the Movies, and meanwhile I managed to get myself a job as a researcher, junior researcher on Planet 24 on the Big Breakfast.

02:53 Doing those things, I learnt what happens behind the camera, which is actually as exciting as the bit in front of the camera. And so when I actually got my chance of becoming… getting in front of the camera, I was much… all the best presenters are good producers because they know what’s happening behind and in front and they can manage… they can produce themselves as they’re going along. They realise when an interview is getting dull, they don’t need someone to tell them, and that’s what makes a good presenter, so.

03:19 I’ve had so many work experiences come into Sky and juniors I employed at Sky. They get frustrated sometimes because all their mates are going out and they’re working long hours. And I was like, but in five years time when you can go, yeah, I met Ray Winston, I went to this football match and went to this gig, I met him, I did that. You’ve got a lot of stories. All they’ve got is stories about going to the same old bar day in day out and their jobs. You’ve got the opportunity, live it, you know. And I think this is one of those jobs… actually I think all good jobs are jobs where you actually dedicate your life to them, and you go, you know, this is a great job, it’s a part of my life. It’s not work, leisure, it’s all blurs into one big thing.

04:00 End