Change Is In The Air

Something exciting is happening in the world of TV Diversity it is almost tangible. 

First Lenny Henry called the Bafta award ceremony "all white". It was picked up by nearly all the papers as a major event. To be honest I didn't think too much of it. I'd heard similar comments before and they rarely amount to anything other than The Guardian readers and Daily Mail readers taking opposite views and trotting out their usual comments.  

Then Lenny along with Kwame Kwei-Armah and a few others took part in an RTS panel discussion on the " Flight of the Black Actor" asking why there weren't more opportunities for BAME actors in the UK, and whether actors feel forced to go abroad. I'm sure most of the people attending didn't notice it but both Kwame and Lenny mused about taking the same approach to BAME diversity as the TV industry has taken to Regional diversity. They were throw away comments during the question and answer session but with hindsight were the start of a snowball. 

Taken together the Bafta comment and the RTS event caused a big enough stir in the press for the Minister for Culture, Media & Sport - Ed Vaizey - to call an industry wide "summit" of the great and the good to see how we could address the declining number of BAME people in the creative industries. 

It was at that summit, midst all the usual platitudes of "needing to do more" and the usual suggestions of "more mentoring" and "training", that Lenny presented the "Henry Paper" outlining that the TV industry should follow the Regional diversity model for increasing diversity. It was still a little rough and consisted of less than two sides of A4. I was at that summit and the overall consensus of the paper was; "best of intentions" and "commend the idea" but "how would it work practically?". And "Maybe Lenny should stick to comedy?"

Then Bafta, the very people who's award ceremony Lenny had criticised, invited him to give their annual keynote speech. Again I was there and I can tell you the speech - "I have a dream screen" - was electric. Lenny put flesh on the bones of the "Henry Paper" explaining exactly how adopting the Regional model would work in practice. It was almost like going to church there were so many 'converts'. You could feel people being converted to an idea that had seemed fanciful previously. 

Then Trevor McDonald came out with the statement that things were getting so bad that we were living in a "media apartheid". This was quickly followed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy saying that we needed to look at radical solutions for increasing diversity in TV and hinted at quotas and ring-fenced money. He didn't mention Lenny Henry but then again he didn't need to. 

Then this week Lenny Henry took part in a televised interview for the TVCollective. What followed might have been a turning point in the debate on TV diversity. Samir Shah, the Ex-head of BBC Current Affairs and Political programmes came out in support of Lenny Henry's proposals. No longer the "well meaning person who should stick to comedy" (as I heard whispered before), but now "the only person with a coherent plan". 

All this has taken place in less than nine months. I have no idea if Lenny Henry's plan will be taken on board by the TV industry - but then again I would have never predicted the events that followed Lenny's comments about the Bafta awards.

What I do know is it feels as if change is in the air and for someone who has been following the issue of diversity for more years than I care to remember it feels exciting.