An entertainment portal competes on speed, reach and a steady flow of film, music and celebrity coverage. Here is how to run writers, editors and audience teams under constant publishing pressure.
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Share your requirementsAn entertainment portal publishes news, reviews, interviews, videos and lists about films, television, music and celebrities. Its team usually includes editors, staff writers, video editors, social media managers, audience and traffic analysts, advertising sales staff and a few engineers. Release days, award nights and trailer launches create sudden peaks, and being second to publish can mean a story is not read at all. Many writers work on short contracts or as freelance contributors, and a few popular names bring most of the traffic. Pay is modest, hours stretch into late evenings and weekends, and the same people are pulled between speed, accuracy and the sales team asking for sponsored content. Staff turnover is high because larger media houses and brands keep hiring away the best. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in entertainment portals. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
On big release or award days, writers stay online late and weekends disappear, with no rule on how many such days one person can carry.
A rushed headline or wrong credit damages trust, but nobody has agreed who checks what before publishing, so mistakes land on the youngest writer.
Writers of lower-traffic reviews feel overlooked while click leaders are praised, and quality work is quietly discouraged.
Rates, kill fees and payment days are agreed over chat, and delays push good contributors to other portals.
Writers are asked to produce brand pieces beside editorial work, and the line between the two is not clear to staff or readers.
Fan abuse, legal complaints from celebrities and trolling arrive directly in a young writer's inbox, with no support or response plan.
A staff writer cannot see the route to senior editor, and the best move to larger media houses at the first offer.
The same few people take late desks because they live nearby or never refuse, and resentment builds without a visible roster.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Retention and Attrition Management; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a entertainment portals business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Who is on morning, evening, night and weekend desk, fixed in advance with swaps recorded, so release-day load is shared and visible.
Who is on morning, evening, night and weekend desk, fixed in advance with swaps recorded, so release-day load is shared and visible.
A short list covering facts, names, credits, images and sources, with a named second reader for sensitive stories, so errors are not blamed on one person.
A short list covering facts, names, credits, images and sources, with a named second reader for sensitive stories, so errors are not blamed on one person.
Rate, word count, deadline, kill fee and payment date written once and reused.
Rate, word count, deadline, kill fee and payment date written once and reused. HR documentation shows how to keep it consistent.
Review writers on accuracy, originality, deadlines and reader response as well as page views, using the performance management process.
Review writers on accuracy, originality, deadlines and reader response as well as page views, using the performance management process.
A written rule on who writes sponsored content, how it is labelled and who approves it, so the newsroom is not pulled both ways.
A written rule on who writes sponsored content, how it is labelled and who approves it, so the newsroom is not pulled both ways.
A named editor to handle complaints, a response template and guidance on blocking and reporting, so junior writers are not left alone.
A named editor to handle complaints, a response template and guidance on blocking and reporting, so junior writers are not left alone.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A fair roster for morning, night and weekend desks with swaps recorded.
Standard terms for staff writers and freelance contributors.
Reviews that count accuracy and originality, not only page views.
A clear route for complaints, online abuse and disputes between writers and editors.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
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Publish a rota in advance, record swaps and give time off after heavy days. People accept hard shifts when they can see the load is shared.
Traffic is useful but narrow. Add accuracy, originality, deadlines and the quality of reader response, or you will reward clicks over trust.
Agree rate, scope, deadline and payment date in writing before work starts, and pay on the day. Reliable payment keeps your best contributors.
Set a short pre-publish checklist and a second reader for sensitive stories. Naming the check removes the blame from one writer.
You may not match pay, but you can offer a visible ladder, bylines, learning and a decent roster. Many people stay for these when they are real.
We would look at your desk roster, freelancer terms and how traffic is used in reviews. A sensible first piece of work is a fair roster and a standard contributor note. Scope follows in writing, so you can accept or trim it.
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