Oh, hey, thanks for linking to a post I contributed to, and for putting it in the “moffat hate” tag so I could see it and respond.
It just so happens that I’ve been an employed adult for about twice as long as you’ve been alive, and a good chunk of that work has been in broadcast media, so I do know something about how these things work. I don’t know specifically what the BBC’s procedures are, but I can make some pretty good guesses.
In your comment on that link up there, you say “YOURE ALL FUCKING IDIOTS THAT HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT MARKETING OR THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY BUT YAY LETS HATE ON THE WRITER”
Well, son, Steven Moffat is more than just a writer for Doctor Who. He’s the Executive Producer, a/k/a “showrunner”, and as such, all ideas about the direction of the show either originate with him or get run by him before they go any further. He has the final say on casting, hires and fires directors and other people who work on the show, outlines the story arcs, and generally sets the tone. No, he does not create publicity materials himself, but his fingerprints are bound to be all over them.
I’m pretty sure the BBC has network-wide art and marketing departments, so he doesn’t hire and fire the people who do that. But, unless the BBC does things very differently than most places, he does sit down in meetings with the art and marketing people, and tells them what he thinks is important about promoting the new season. If he doesn’t go to the meetings himself, he delegates it to someone he has hired, and who he trusts to share his vision and represent his ideas.
Then the art department people come up with some rough ideas, and he (or his chosen assistant) picks the one they should go with, and maybe suggests some further tweaks and areas of focus. The people on both sides of this process (if they do their jobs well) are consciously thinking about what message they want the show to convey and what images best convey that message. The process of feedback and tweaking may go through several cycles, and it doesn’t stop until the Doctor Who staff (which means, ultimately, Moffat) is satisfied with the end product.
Now, I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Moffat just tells the BBC art and marketing departments to go do whatever the hell they please. But if he does that, he’s neglecting an important part of his job. It’s also possible that there are people above him at the BBC who also have to approve of the marketing materials, and they could be working at cross-purposes with him. But even if he doesn’t have the final say, it’s absurd to say that he has nothing to do with the process.
I suggest that you read this post, including the OP’s readmore, for further discussion of this, as well as why promotional images matter, and what sexism in media is.
tl;dr: You’re a 17-year-old film student. If you can’t tell the difference between Moffat-as-writer and Moffat-as-showrunner, don’t presume to tell other people that they know nothing about marketing or the television industry.
