Lyndon Saunders spent seventeen years in broadcast media before he ever stood in front of a lecture hall. He started out at a small independent production company in his early twenties, which meant getting hands-on experience from day one.
It turned out to be exactly the training ground he needed.
It didn’t take long to pay off. Lyndon soon began producing high-profile documentaries for Radio 1. His first project involved a tour across America with Badly Drawn Boy. And later, a tenth-anniversary documentary about Kurt Cobain that got commissioned because it didn’t chase the same big interview everyone else was after; it found a different way in entirely.
When Everything Goes Wrong, Live
None of it came with much of a safety net.
Lyndon was one of the first people sent to New York on the first charter flight after 9/11, tasked with turning around a documentary special by the weekend. The technology of the time was barely up to it. Editing software crashed under the weight of just a handful of audio tracks, and with an hour to broadcast, the finished mix still wouldn’t bounce out. The only option left was to play it live. Straight off a laptop headphone jack, with no backup if it failed.
Years later, a live radio studio lost its connection to the network minutes before going on air, forcing the whole show onto paper notes and mobile phones with no talkback at all.
“Great save, well held, great save,” was how the network manager put it afterwards. Which, Lyndon says, is about as good as that kind of day is ever going to feel.
Dragon’s Den, Strictly, and Knowing When to Stop
From there, Lyndon moved into television development at BBC Entertainment, including producing five series of Dragon’s Den, followed by what he still calls the best job of his career, Strictly Come Dancing.
But eventually, the pace of the industry, with its back-to-back location shoots, kept pulling him away from his wife and two young children for days at a time. Coming back from paternity leave to be told to pack a case for another location shoot was the moment it became clear something had to change.
Not because anyone had done anything wrong, he says. That’s simply what the job asks of you.
Teaching the Next Generation
So he moved into teaching. Not away from the industry, but into a different relationship with it. One where seventeen years of hands-on production experience becomes something you pass on rather than something you leave behind.
He’s now a senior lecturer and subject head for broadcast media at the University of Salford, where his students work on real briefs set by programmes like Coronation Street and ITV’s Tonight, brought in through his own former industry contacts.
The conversation also discusses AI, from the perspective of someone who has spent a career in production and now teaches those about to enter the field.
His view is measured rather than alarmist. Factual and drama production currently has, in his words, a flat no on generative AI, largely due to copyright and audience trust. He doesn’t see that changing quickly.
But he’s equally clear that avoiding AI altogether isn’t a viable option for graduates entering the industry.
“AI is not necessarily coming for your job… because people who are skilled users of AI are going to get your job.”
It’s not really about whether AI belongs in creative work. It’s about who controls it, and who’s equipped to use it well.
Lyndon’s career has covered radio, television, live broadcast, and now teaching the next generation coming up behind him. It’s all in this conversation.
Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page.
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