How to turn your passion into money and joy for others
N
ow more than ever, retirement means different things to different people. For some it means putting their feet up, for others it means spending more time with friends and family, and for a whole other set of people it means finally having the time to pursue their passion project. That could be a hobby, a “side-hustle”, or even an entirely new phase in a career. That's the one I’d like to talk about today. A lot of people leave their jobs full of experience and of ideas of how they would have done things better or differently and, for many, “retirement” is the perfect time to prove this thanks to the many wonders of technology, following this new path has never been easier. Speaking from my own experience, I have been a composer in the world of theatre, the arts in general and TV in particular for decades. If you’ve ever happened to hear the UEFA Champions League Anthem, then you’ve heard some of my work. I have also had a parallel career as a music and arts director and producer for film and television and during this more recent period I became increasingly concerned with the way that the industry was evolving in its endless race for ratings and attempts to capture the younger audience. Documentaries became almost exclusively presenterled, and music performances always tended towards mainstream ensembles and repertoire. Coverage of the visual arts is predominantly historical and dance and jazz virtually never appear on BBC 4 and Sky Arts, which are
the only broadcasters that even still try to cover these genres. This, combined with a general dumbing down and streamlining of arts content to appeal to a younger audience, left me feeling more than a little disillusioned with the industry - and led me to creating my own alternative in The Arts Channel. This was all amplified by knowing I wasn’t alone. I spoke to countless people of my own age who felt that the current crop of mainstream arts programming was too patronising for them to enjoy. Particularly frustrating was the fact that I knew from experience that there was a wealth of arts content out there, from all round the world which covered a wide range of topics - and respected its audience’s intelligence - which just wasn’t being picked up by the major platforms. No-one enjoys being talked down to but, when that programming is all that is available, the only choices are to grin and bear it or switch off entirely. And that's no good! Particularly at a time like this when the live arts scene is hamstrung by the recent pandemic, and will continue to be for some time to come. So, I decided to do something about it. A decade ago the idea of starting a channel to fill the gap left by the big broadcasters would have been a fairly ludicrous idea to try when one was at retirement age. The BBC and Sky and the other major traditional channels remained the gatekeepers for so long because of their established distribution networks and their ability to access the latest technology. But technology is no longer the barrier that it was to getting things done. And I say that as someone with no technological experience in this field to speak of whatsoever. For that I turned to SupaPass, an out of the box solution for pre-built content websites and apps. The team there supplied the kind of platform which, up until very recently, simply didn't exist for niche projects with limited budgets. The whole process of setting up was complicated for a luddite like me, but they made it work for me and continue to do so - they also seem to share my passion for making all the elements of the online and app package clear, simple and very stylish. The ability to upload anything I wanted and have the whole
technology headache taken away was the difference between toying with the idea and it becoming a profitable passion project. There was something very liberating about the idea of launching a channel filled with the kind of content that I felt had been missing from the mainstream for too long. Thanks to my experience and industry contacts, I knew just where to get this content. I started by speaking with my friend, mentor and veteran of the international television arts scene; Reiner Moritz - a distributor and producer at Poorhouse International. Through him I secured the use of over 50 hours of content to use on the channel and have been steadily building it from there from my colleague around the world and the UK ever since. I know the experience of wanting to fix the mistakes of an industry you’ve effectively moved on from isn’t universal to everyone of my (or indeed Reiner’s) age, but I’d say the willingness to embrace technology to do whatever you’ve wanted to do absolutely is. Whether you want to seek out the entertainment you enjoy (perhaps from somewhere like The Arts Channel), or better master a hobby you finally have time for or, like me, turn a passion project into something that brings joy to others - technology is the enabler, not a barrier. I can’t imagine actually ‘retiring’ in the conventional sense – but I am lucky to be able to fill my hours with work, both as a composer and with TAC on my own terms, with my own goals and without outside interference and this has helped me to re-engage with the very industry with which I was so frustrated. Being able to remain niche, and create a curated platform of quality that others enjoy arguably keeps me busier than ever! We are all living longer and we all want to be useful and to be engaged for longer. The next phase of my life is about continuing to deliver something very special and unique. Not to expand, because that would change the situation into it being just another job. Some passion projects can remain passion projects, and the current pandemic conditions gives people the perfect opportunity to experiment with that as I have. n RETIREMENT
today
How to turn your passion into money and joy for others
by Tony Britten, Composer and Founder of The Arts Channel
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