Do you sometimes hear of a colleague who works in Traffic and pretend you know what they do?
With such a huge team that covers so many different areas, you’d be forgiven if their roles went over your head.
Which is why The Water Cooler caught up with Head of Traffic, Sandra Tordoff to get the low down on this hard working department.
What is your role and what does it entail?
As the Head of Traffic, I lead a team of 30 people to produce daily schedules for all our broadcast channels – 10, 10 Bold, 10 Peach, 10 Shake, MTV Channels, Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon.
Traffic is the continual flow of clients advertising that is directed to free-to-air and subscription TV audiences, with a measurable result. We are a deadline driven, high-functioning team with a lot of responsibility.
The department is divided into four parts – Commercial Operations, Traffic Sponsorships, Traffic Operations and Commercial Allocation.
Commercial Operations are responsible for the program format that sales book into. They are essentially our forward planners and ensure that we abide by the rules and regulations set down for broadcast television. A small team of four, they don’t usually have the deadlines like the rest of traffic, but they are responsible for maximising revenue.
Traffic Sponsorships look after Tier 1 programming, ensuring that client exclusivities, billboards and integrations are all correct, etc. A small team of four they liaise with other areas of the business to ensure that the Network delivers what is promised.
Traffic Operations look after “the block” which is the TX schedule. They are responsible for booking late sales requests, client conflictions, reconciliation and ensuring that we don’t breach on the RCMI and Classification front. This is our largest team, and last year they processed over 10,000 email requests alone.
Commercial Allocations look after client TVC’s. They apply them to the client campaigns, ensure that they arrive on station, and ensure that we have no breaches with censorships. A small team of eight staff and keyed just over a staggering 7.5 million spots last year.
My role, essentially, is to ensure Traffic make deadlines as we hand over to a Sydney team every night, that we aren’t breaching in anyway, that we have utilised all airtime to the best revenue advantage, and to support my team in any way that I can.
I forward plan as much as possible so that we can handle all eventualities as they confront us. I also ensure that the staff are trained, cross-trained, upskilled and provide refresher training so that the department is stronger in knowledge and know-how.
What is your background and how did you come to work in Traffic?
I began in the media industry in September 1987 at a regional station in Maryborough known as SEQ8.
I had completed Year 12 the year before and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. The Traffic department had three staff – A Traffic manager, a booking clerk (what sales do now), and a material clerk (CAT) – which was my role.
We printed out schedules on triplicate paper and then when the printer broke, we hand wrote it! My first system was Qantel, and it was back in the day when the computers were little black boxes with bright green print. We used to get our McDonalds material instructions by a telex machine!
SEQ8 then became Sunshine Television, and then 7. In 1990 I became “2IC” and we had grown to seven staff members in Traffic and moved onto a system known as Equinox.
Due to family commitments, I moved towns. I guess I was their first personal trial for working outside the office environment, as Traffic was situated in the Maroochydore office.
I remained working in all areas of the Traffic department as well as assisting sales, production, PA to General Manager and receptionist. In regional television you wear many hats, but it makes you well-rounded.
In 2011 I came back to core Traffic work, and in November 2014 I became Traffic Manager of 7QLD.
In February 2015 IBMS was launched, and I have been a Traffic Manager ever since.
What are the biggest challenges of your role?
My first challenge when I arrived was to build a team that consisted of staff that had knowledge – but most of them did not. They had never worked on IBMS, nor did they really know what Traffic was.
Traffic is a specialised area, and it usually takes three months for basic knowledge to stick and six months to really cement in before you see what we call “the light bulb” moments. Most of our traffic department began on 3rd December 2018 and we launched our first schedules on the 30th of that same month.
Having spent over 30 years in regional television it has been quite a transition to metro television. The structure is completely different, and I have had to adapt to the way things are done here.
You would think that having such a large team would be a challenge, however, I am very blessed with staff who have come from all backgrounds of life and have been able to apply it in some way to what we do here. We all have a strong sense of togetherness and we get the work done no matter what obstacles come our way.
What do you love most about working for Paramount, in particular the Brisbane office?
The cafeteria? The free subscription?
No, in all honesty it is the people.
We all have a common goal which is to bring our best to the table each day and leave each night knowing that and that we have helped do our part to deliver our work to loungerooms all over Australia.
What do you love to do outside your work?
In my spare time, when I am not on call, you will find me in the garden, on a dirt track somewhere (Miss Jane aka GPS always sends us on dirt roads!) or painting something. I am a self-taught painter and have sold some paintings in the past.
These days I tend to be painting fences, windows and doors as I like to do up houses and then sell them on. (Please note: My husband isn’t entirely enamoured with the work. LOL!). We are about to sell our second “flip”, and I use that term loosely because it takes me more than a few months.
Where to next? Well, I don’t know, but I am always looking for something to do, so you just never know!
