A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
“RECENT DATA
FROM DIRECTORS UK
SUGGESTED THAT 1.5%
OF TELEVISION
PROGRAMMES WERE
MADE BY BAME
DIRECTORS”
Diversity strategies
UK television, therefore, does not yet look like
the audience it is supposed to serve. This is
also true in terms of the composition of the
television workforce that remains, some 15
years after the former director-general Greg
Dyke’s comment that the BBC was “hideously
white” 319 : it is disproportionately white,
male, over-35, London-based and privately
educated. This is accentuated at top levels
where women occupy 39% of management
positions while BAME individuals occupy a
mere 4% of executive positions, well below
their respective proportion of the population
(of 13%). 320 This is not quite as bad as the
situation in the UK film industry where
Directors UK found that women directed a
mere 13.6% of films made between 2005 and
2014 leading them to conclude that “there
has not been any meaningful improvement
in the representation of female directors”. 321
There is, however, no room for complacency
in relation to television and a real need for
concrete measures to address the situation.
Lenny Henry certainly touched a nerve
in his celebrated BAFTA lecture in 2014
where he argued for action to address the
fact that BAME individuals make up only
5.4% of the creative industries (precisely
the same figure as in 2000) and that, while
the sector has grown overall, fewer BAME
people are working in it. 322 Recent data
from Directors UK suggested that 1.5% of
television programmes were made by BAME
directors while, of the 6000 directors on its
database, a mere 214 (3.5%) were from BAME
backgrounds. 323
In response to this deficit, diversity has
become a key buzzword inside the television
industry with all broadcasters publishing
‘diversity strategies’ that relate to their
plans to develop more ‘inclusive’ hiring and
representational practices. For example, the
BBC has recently published its latest Diversity
and Inclusion Strategy, Channel 4 introduced
its 360° Diversity Charter in 2015 while ITV
has a Social Partnership strategy that it aims
to embed throughout its programming. 324
While all these initiatives are to be welcomed
as a sign that broadcasters have accepted
that they have to improve their performance
in relation to diversity, they are not without
their own problems.
319
Amelia Hill, ‘Dyke: BBC is hideously white’, the Guardian, January 7, 2001.
320
Creative Skillset, 2015 Employment Survey, March 2016.
321
Directors UK, Out of the Picture: A study of gender inequality amongst film directors in the UK film industry, May 2016, p. 7.
322
Tara Conlan, ‘Lenny Henry calls for law to boost low numbers of black people in TV industry’, Guardian, March 18, 2014.
323
Directors UK, UK Television: Adjusting the Colour Balance, 2015, https://www.directors.uk.com/news/uk-television-adjusting-the-colour-balance.
324
See the House of Commons Library briefing paper on Diversity in Broadcasting, No. 7553, April 12, 2016 for an overview of diversity strategies.
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