BRIGHTON — Nicky Taylor used to produce television programs with Delia Smith, Loyd Grossman, and the Hairy Bikers. Now, at 60, they scan groceries, process Deliveroo orders, and restock shelves at a Waitrose store. The olive oil subscription is gone.
Canceled. That subscription is a small detail.
But it tells the story. Taylor spent 35 years in factual television. Food shows.
Travel shows. Lifestyle programs for the BBC, ITV, and Channel 5.
The work was steady. The pay was substantial. One production ended, the next one started.
There was always a call. The calls stopped. Not all at once.
The gaps between projects grew longer. The phone rang less often.
The number of TV commissions shrank. Streaming services and social media ate the middle ground of factual television — the exact ground where Taylor had built a career. So Taylor, a former freelance executive producer, now works four days a week at a local Waitrose in Brighton.
They man the checkout. They handle the online orders.
They stack the shelves. The pay is what they used to earn in a single day. Now it is a week’s wage.
The shift is dramatic. But it is not a retirement story. Taylor is not winding down.
They are working harder than ever. There is no gardening.
No cruises. Just the new routine at the supermarket. The television industry has changed.
The people who fed the machine are now outside it. Taylor is one of them.
At 60, with 35 years of experience, they are starting over in a job that requires no experience at all. This is not a story about a single person’s bad luck. It is a story about what happens to an entire layer of an industry when the industry shifts.
The top stays. The bottom stays. The middle — the producers, the freelance executives, the people who made the programs that filled the schedules — that middle disappears.
Taylor’s career spanned food, travel, and lifestyle. Those were the reliable genres.
The ones that always got commissioned. The ones that sent producers around the world. Taylor traveled constantly.
Moved from one production to the next. Worked with national treasures.
Now the national treasures are on streaming platforms. The travel shows are on YouTube. The lifestyle programs are on TikTok.
The middle ground is gone. Taylor calls this their “third quarter.” It is not the quarter they planned. At 60, they are stacking shelves.
They are processing online grocery orders. They are doing what is available.
The olive oil subscription was a small luxury. The kind of thing you order when you have a decent income and a life that involves cooking for pleasure. Taylor canceled it.
Not because they wanted to. Because they had to.
That subscription is the measure of the change. From a top TV executive earning a substantial income to a supermarket worker earning in a week what they used to earn in a day. From traveling the world to commuting to a local store.
From producing programs with Delia Smith to restocking the shelves where customers buy Delia Smith’s cookbooks. The television industry did not collapse. It just stopped needing people like Nicky Taylor.
And at 60, with 35 years of experience, they are working harder than ever for a fraction of the pay. No gardening.
No cruises. Just the checkout line.
