Showtime Australia: My Home for the Next Seven Weeks

I really think I have the best internship in the program. It's amazing, and I love it.

Now I've only worked there for four days, but I'll give you a basic rundown of what I've been up to so far.

I work for Showtime Australia, the television network. They combine programming like Dexter and True Blood from the States with original Australian programming that they produce like Tangle and Satisfaction. I'm working in three key areas: marketing, programming, and executive production. Marketing isn't really my major or interest but they're launching six new channels on November 15th so the marketing department and my main boss are stretched pretty thin. I'm really happy to help because they give me amazing responsibilities like creating two subscriber newsletters on my own, which go to over 50,000 people and creating the newsletter for their media contacts in the industry. It's been great learning about the processes that go into launching these new channels and getting them out there in Australia. Everybody is busy and excited. It's really dynamic and frenetic at times, the energy is amazing. The entire office is filled with friendly, engaging people who are willing to help me and include me in what they're doing, there's no real pretension, everybody is more than happy to hear my questions or explain what's going on.

In programming, I've just been shadowing their main programmer - Derek, who's working on the next year's schedules. My first big job was to catalog and alphabetize their entire DVD screener collection, which was a huge task. It was great, though, because it allowed me to absorb their entire library and see what I want to borrow and also what makes up a comprehensive collection for programming. I'm hoping to get more into acquisitions as well and learn the process of working with distributors to get programs and films on air across the world. It's a great department.

The executive producer, Kim also has quite a bit for me to do. I don't know what it really entails, yet, but I'm excited because she's a woman in a male-dominated industry and one who's fantastic at her job. She's the EP on most of Showtime's original programming, like Tangle, and I'm just really curious as to the specifics of her job and the daily ins and outs of what she does. When I approached her she was incredibly friendly and excited to get me involved, especially when she heard my concentration was on executive production and how really, truly fascinated by her job I was. I'm hoping she can steal me away in the next week or so, especially after the launch when marketing calms down a bit. All three areas are really great for me to have on my resume and the skills I'm learning are invaluable for the future. Not to mention - I get to watch DVDs half of the day. :) I need to familiarize myself with the Australian programs, so half the day is usually spent watching really great shows that I'm going to be super upset will not be available to me when I go home! I'm hoping one of my bosses will keep me in DVDs even when I get back to the States!

It's only been a week at my internship but so far I'm adoring it, I'm happy and ready to get up every morning, even though it's early, because I know the day will fly by with interesting and challenging work. It's such a success. I can't wait to keep learning!

Next up: birthday celebrations!