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

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A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION First, there is the definitional issue. We have already argued that diversity in television needs to be understood with reference to voice, representation and opportunity and that, therefore, it cannot be restricted to the portrayal of a specific social group. However, there is a danger that diversity becomes a ‘catch-all’ phrase that refers to a blissful state of ‘inclusion’ rather than a commitment to tackle previous patterns of ‘exclusion’. When the cover of the BBC’s strategy document insists that “Diversity includes everyone” – with a photograph of Bake-Off winner Nadiya Hussain along with Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry – the implication is that diversity is all about the creation of a ‘happy family’ as opposed to the commitment to challenge the structures and ideas that have undermined prospects for inclusion and equality. Even Channel 4, which, as we have already seen in Chapter 5, was launched with a remit to target minority audiences and which regularly attracts high levels of BAME viewers to its news bulletins, is keen to shift diversity onto less contentious ground. Diversity is not about the colour of someone’s skin; it goes way beyond that. Diversity is about being all-inclusive, regardless of culture, nationality, religious persuasion, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, race, age, background and addressing social mobility. 325 VOICE, REPRESENTATION & OPPORTUNITY Television must provide a means by which all social groups are able to speak, to be portrayed respectfully and accurately, to have equal employment prospects and, to have access to a wide range of content. 325 Channel 4 – Equality Objectives, March 2012, p. 1. 110
CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD The problem is, however, that diversity is about skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, class and other characteristics, and therefore about how specific marginalised groups have not been sufficiently well integrated into the television workforce and television programming. So, for example, when Idris Elba stood up in front of parliamentarians in 2016 to insist – quite rightly we believe – that diversity is “more than just skin colour” and is mainly about “diversity of thought”, 326 the fact remains that he was asked to deliver the speech precisely because of a growing concern that opportunities for BAME participation in the TV industry remain very limited. Race, as well as other forms of ‘difference’, cannot be so easily ‘erased’ from diversity talk. Indeed, Sara Ahmed, who has written widely on diversity and public policy, argues that there remains a “sticky” association between race and diversity. While, in reality, it is not so easy to move ‘beyond’ race, the language of diversity is “often used as a shorthand for inclusion” 327 – a way of recognising difference but freeing it from negative associations concerning actual forms of discrimination. Diversity, she insists, can then be used to avoid confrontation and simply to highlight the contributions and achievements of different groups without asking more fundamental questions of why these achievements were marginalised in first place. Television historians like Sarita Malik remind us that diversity policy was not always like this. When Channel 4 first started, it operated as a “multicultural public sphere” with a series of programmes that engaged directly with “questions of representation and racial stereotyping”. 328 Malik identifies a change in programme strategy after the closure of its Multicultural Programmes Department in 2002 as part of a more general shift in broadcasting from a ‘politicised’ policy of multiculturalism to a more consumerist emphasis on cultural, and now creative, diversity. What we are now left with is the possibility of a “depoliticized, raceless ‘diversity’ consensus”. 329 The implication here is that broadcasters are using justified complaints about a lack of representation to pursue commercial strategies to appeal to diverse audiences without fundamentally changing commissioning and funding structures. The cultural theorist Anamik Saha describes this as the “mainstreaming” of cultural diversity which “while no doubt increasing the visibility of blacks and Asians on prime-time television, had actually has little impact on the quality of representations.” 330 So while BAME individuals may be increasingly visible on TV, the quality of their representations has not have fundamentally changed and we are still stuck, all too often, with a repertoire limited to “terrorism, violence, conflict and carnival” or, in terms of how Muslims are portrayed, to “beards, scarves, halal meat, terrorists, forced marriage”. 331 This connects to the second potential problem with broadcasters’ diversity strategies, especially with regard to employment: the reliance on targets, the provision of small pockets of funding and training and what the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality described to us 326 Idris Elba, speech to parliament on ‘Diversity in the Media’, January 18, 2016. 327 Sara Ahmed, On being included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, London: Duke University Press, p. 14. 328 Sarita Malik, ‘“Creative Diversity”: UK Public Service Broadcasting After Multiculturalism’, Popular Communication 11(3), p. 10 329 Malik, ‘Creative Diversity’, p. 17. 330 Anamik Saha, ‘“Beards, scarves, halal meat, terrorists, forced marriage”: television industries and the produce of “race”, Media, Culture and Society 34(4), 2012, p. 430. 331 Cited in Saha, ‘Beards’, p. 425, p. 435. 111
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A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVIS
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Contents Foreword by David Puttnam
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To instruct democracy, if possible
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Welcome Television is leading a cha
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CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL
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PSB channels 71.9% All other channe
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Why television matters Television i
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1982 1990s 2012 The BBC-ITV duopoly
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Time for action Today’s policymak
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Basic principles At the core of pre
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The multichannel revolution Perhaps
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The BBC For most people, the BBC is
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Page 59 and 60: CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL
Page 67 and 68: Channel 4 If the BBC is the most im
Page 71 and 72: Only 8% of Channel 4’s total spen
Page 79 and 80: ITV and Channel 5 The focus of atte
Page 85 and 86: The changing face of ITV 1993-2002
Page 91 and 92: New sources of public service conte
Page 103 and 104: Television and diversity We have ea
Page 107 and 108: THE PEOPLE SHOULD BE TELEVISED If t
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Page 115 and 116: Nations and Regions Public service
Page 129 and 130: Content diversity One of the key wa
Page 135 and 136: Sports content now accounts for som
Page 145 and 146: Talent development and training In
Page 153 and 154: Conclusion Television is changing.
Page 155 and 156: Recommendations General The UK’s
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Appointing the BBC board Sir David
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APPLICATION OF THE NOLAN PRINCIPLES
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BAFTA members’ survey delivered i
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Public service broadcasting, public
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Inquiry events Do we still need pub
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Acknowledgements Inquiry Report Con
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A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

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