“Plan or Sham? The BBC’s new ￡100 million diversity pledge may not lead to more BAME employment” by Simon Albury

Last month the BBC announced it would be committing ￡100 million of its content spend on diverse productions and talent.

“The senseless killing of George Floyd – and what it tells us about the stain of systemic racism – has had a profound impact on all of us. It’s made us question ourselves about what more we can do to help tackle racism – and drive inclusion within our organisation and in society as a whole” declared the retiring BBC Director General, Tony Hall. “This is our response – it’s going to drive change in what we make and who makes it. It’s a big leap forward..”

“￡100 million” was a nice big flashy figure for a press release. The fine print showed the “￡100 million was to be spread over three years. That is ￡33 million a year.

According to the last BBC annual report, the BBC spent ￡1,678million a year on television content. ￡33 million amounts to no more than 1.9%.

To me, the plans had too much in common with the BAFTA/BFI Film Diversity Measures. In 2016 Open Democracy published my article “BAFTA/BFI Film Diversity Measures may not lead to BAME employment”. [1]

Last week LSE published a report by Dr Clive James Nwonka which showed the BAFTA/BFI measures had made almost no impact. [2]

Nwonka found that, for film, “Britain’s black and ethnic minority population remain excluded by a continued culture of structural racism” and “the data analysis reveals that racial underrepresentation remains a structural condition within the film industry”

Pick and Mix

The BAFTA/BFI measures, that didn’t work, took a pick and mix approach. So does the BBC. The BBC commits to create content with at least two of the following three priorities:

• Diverse stories and portrayal on-screen
• Diverse production teams and talent
• Diverse-led production companies

and

• A mandatory 20% diverse-talent target will apply to all new network commissions from April 2021.

When I told an Ofcom diversity expert that the commitment was no more than 1.9% of the annual spend, the expert replied “What about the 20% of BAME employment?” Even the Ofcom expert hadn’t understood the fine print.

The fund is not just about BAME employment – it also covers disability, socio-economic/class – all the protected characteristics – all under-represented and all worthy of support. By going wide, with pick and mix, and no baseline against which to measure progress, the ￡100 million commitment may make no difference at all.

A big leap forward

Some industry observers think what Tony Hall calls “a big leap forward” may be no leap at all.

Off-screen, Ofcom’s most recent Report on Diversity[3] shows that the BBC. alone among the broadcasters, made no year on year progress at all on BAME employment, remaining stuck at 13%. The BBC lagged behind:

Viacom/Channel 5 - 20%

Channel 4 - 19%

Sky - 16%

BBC - 13%

With shows like Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You”, “Noughts + Crosses”, “Sitting In Limbo” and “The Long Song”, on-screen, any viewer can see the BBC is doing much better on BAME programming. Add in Steve McQueen’s six film series “Small Axe” due in November, and it could be that the BBC has already hit the ￡33 million a year sum on the criteria of BAME Diverse stories and portrayal on-screen. There’s no way of knowing. – and that is the problem.

Blatant racism

Writing in the Guardian about what he had learned from making his BBC series, Steve McQueen said:

“The stark reality is that there is no infrastructure to support and hire BAME crew. And there is no infrastructure because there hasn’t been enough will or urgency to put it in place. We really need to do much, much better.”

The lack of will and urgency persists twenty years after the BBC published its first comprehensive diversity action plan. That plan was so impressive and well crafted that Sir Herman Ouseley, then Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said,

“I’m hopeful that today is a watershed because the high-level executives have come here and pledged themselves to commitments, along with the Secretary of State (Chris Smith).”

When it comes to diversity, the BBC promises so much but delivers so slowly.

McQueen is clear:

“The culture of the industry has to change. It’s just not healthy. It’s wrong. And yet, many people in the industry go along with it as if it is normal. It’s not normal. It is anything but normal. It’s blindingly, obviously wrong. It’s blatant racism. Fact. I grew up with it. I know it. And not nearly enough is being done about it.”

Last October, Sharon White, then Ofcom CEO, wrote a scorching letter to Tony Hall on the BBC failure to deliver against its remit. It said, “we have an overall concern with how the BBC is delivering against its requirements on diversity, and the transparency with which it reports to us”

Tony Hall has promised “We’ll have more to announce in the coming weeks.”

Hall needs to be transparent and provide detail on what and where the BBC is currently devoting expenditure according to the criteria for the ￡100 million plan, so that there is a baseline against which progress can be measured. Until then, many observers will continue to believe the plan is no more than a flash in the pan announcement, designed to dazzle and distract but with no obligation to deliver more.

Simon Albury is Chair of the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality CIO and a former Chief Executive of the Royal Television Society

An edited version of this article was published by Open Democracy on 23 July 2020

[1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/baftabfi-film-diversity-measures-may-not-lead-to-bame-employment/

[2]https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105675/1/Race_and_Ethnicity_in_the_UK_Film_Industry_An_Analysis_of_the_BFI_Diversiy_Standards_Report_SPREAD_PRINT_VERSION.pdf

[3] Diversity and equal opportunities in television – UK television industry charts and tables. Ofcom, Fieldwork; May – July 2019

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“Plan or Sham? The BBC’s new ￡100 million diversity pledge may not lead to more BAME employment” by Simon Albury

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