EXCLUSIVE: British producer OR Media, which has made shows for the Saudi state broadcaster and BBC, along with Tom Hollander-starring docu-feature Path of Blood, has laid off 14% of its workforce and failed to pay freelancers to the tune of what sources estimate could be hundreds of thousands of pounds.
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Deadline has spoken with half a dozen current and former OR Media staff, who paint a chaotic picture of a company in a tricky financial position. We have also seen emails from CFO Andrew Wallace to senior staff saying “we’re having difficult conversations with a large number of people” and urging them to be “alert to the risk of malicious rumor.”
An OR Media spokesman blamed a “major” unnamed UK client, which announced that “it was making significant and immediate cuts to its operations.” “Whilst not disputing its debts to us or its desire to continue commissioning films from us in the future, it unilaterally imposed an extremely tight payment plan on us,” added the spokesman. “We are in the process of signing a number of new contracts and these will enable us to return to our normal payment terms in the very near future, begin reengaging staff, and hopefully repair some of the damage that has been done.”
The number laid off totals 18, the spokesman said, which accounts for around 14% of the circa-200 staff at the London-based, near-30-year-old company.
Deadline is told that numerous freelancers and suppliers haven’t been paid for months, with estimates from insiders placing the total owed across the board in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Sources have told us that some people were informed via text messages or emails late into the evening that they were losing jobs or weren’t having contracts renewed.
The OR Media spokesman acknowledged that some freelancer contracts had been allowed to expire, while “we are also behind where we want to be with our freelancer and supplier payments.” “This has been a deeply regrettable and difficult process despite our efforts to handle it as professionally and supportively as possible,” the spokesman said.
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OR Media is run by Saudi filmmaker Adel Alabdulkarim. Alabdulkarim is also the sole director of Volant Media, the company that owns TV network Iran International, which has in the past been investigated by Ofcom. That network generated headlines earlier this year when one of its TV presenters was attacked in London by men believed to be acting for the Tehran regime.
OR Media’s website lists reams of documentary series and movies produced during the past three decades. It has made the likes of Hajj: Journey of a Lifetime for the BBC, Saudi Arabia’s War on Al Qaeda for Al Arabiya and God’s Business for Al Jazeera. In 2018, the company produced Path of Blood, an award-winning documentary series drawn from a hoard of jihadi home-movie footage that was captured by Saudi security services. Night Manager star Hollander represented the “voice of Jihad” in the docu-feature, which was narrated by English actor Samuel West. The ‘in production’ section of OR Media’s website includes shows titled Saving Yemen for Saudi-owned Arabic news channel Al Arabiya and another titled Saudi Arabia’s War on Al Qaeda , this time for Saudi TV.
One senior OR Media insider said concerns had been raised by a number of team members over a lack of mental health provision for people working on projects that feature disturbing footage. “I struggled to sleep for a week after watching some of the footage,” they added. “It’s been a huge gripe.”
An OR spokesperson said no one had raised issues over disturbing footage and “we rarely work with material that could be described as gruesome.”
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