On Tuesday 11th June Sir Lenny Henry, Simon Albury MBE and I went to the House of Lords and gave oral evidence about diversity in the UK media.
While the oral evidence is important a large part of it is about spectacle and and performance in many ways what is more important is the written evidence that is submitted before the meeting that many people never get to read.
Please read the written evidence that Sir Lenny and I submitted to the House of Lords Communications Committee on media diversity. It is a long read but one of the most important things I have ever written and I hope it will help shape the debate on media diversity.
Submission to “Public service broadcasting in the age of video on demand inquiry”
By Marcus Ryder (Chief International Editor CGTN Digital) and Sir Lenny Henry CBE (Actor, Producer and CEO of Douglas Road Productions)
SYNOPSIS
Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services are both an example of diversity best practice which the rest of the UK broadcasting industry can learn from and at the same time present an existential threat to homegrown British diversity in broadcasting.
This is a key issue, because diversity in the UK television industry is at a worryingly low level. For BAME Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) diversity there is evidence that progress is not only extremely slow, it might even be going backwards.
We believe that the British broadcasting industry can learn important lessons by examining SVoDs economic model of targeting distinct audience groups to maximise subscriptions, as opposed to aiming for large audiences which might often not be to the benefit of minority groups.
At the same time, we also believe that the attraction of diverse groups to predominantly US controlled SVoDs could pose a threat to homegrown UK broadcasting - similar to the threat they have posed to homegrown UK Children’s programming. Specific actions must be taken urgently to protect traditional broadcasters, and doing so by increasing their diversity is a no-brainer.
Therefore, we strongly recommend three broad models to increase and protect UK broadcasting through raising diversity both in front of and behind the camera:
DEDICATED CONTESTABLE GOVERNMENT FUNDS. The government should protect and promote diverse productions in exactly the same way it protects and promotes Children’s programmes with a contestable fund as announced in December 2017.
BROADCASTERS RING-FENCE PROGRAMME HOURS AND SPEND. Broadcasters should duplicate the “out-of-London” model for increasing regional diversity and ring-fence a set number of programme hours and spend for diverse productions.
DIVERSITY TAX BREAKS. The total size of the UK film and high-end television industry has grown through carefully targeted tax breaks. We believe tax breaks targeting film and TV productions that meet certain diversity criteria would similarly grow media diversity.
SVoDs GROWS DIVERSITY BUT ALSO THREATENS HOMEGROWN UK DIVERSITY
The economic model of SVoDs is subscription based. Thus, the economic model - by its very nature - is built around maximizing the number of programmes which are highly valued by as broad a range of people as possible to encourage them to sign up. This is far more important to SVoDs, for example, than focusing on marketing series’ that might get a high audience rating, but from an audience group that is are already subscribing.
This is why Netfllix is actively targeting diverse groups to get them to sign up.
That is why Netflix does not reveal its audience ratings. The CEO of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, told the BBC that ratings “are mostly for advertising sales”, and not much else. Talking to the New York Times, Sarandos explained why publishing audience ratings can be harmful to this strategy; “Once we give a number for a show, then every show will be benchmarked off of that show even though they were built sometimes for very specific audiences.”
The focus on specific diverse audiences as an economic and business model is crucial. It explains why SoVDs have seemed so successful in delivering diverse programmes, on and off camera. Both LGBTQ and BAME viewers have cited better representation of their lives in US shows broadcast by American SVoDs than in British produced shows. The benefit of the SVoDs strategy is backed up by research by Kantar Media for Ofcom that both LGBTQ and BAME audiences favour SVoDs over BBC.
This strategy and economic model has two implications for UK broadcasters.
First, Netflix’s strategy should be used as an example of what data traditional UK broadcasters publish and do not publish as they move into SVoD services such as BritBox. For example publishing traditional audience ratings – measuring the success of a series by the size of its audience irrespective of its make-up – will inadvertently discourage diversity, while publishing which programmes encourage new people to subscribe to a service will encourage diversity.
This will not only help them succeed in the SVoD market, but it will imbed diversity into their business models.
Second, we believe Netflix’s, and other US SVoDs, success at the same time present an existential threat to British society.
A few years ago, broadcasters, the government and other stakeholders expressed a real concern that young British people would grow up on a diet of foreign imports on Netflix and Youtube. As a result, the government ring-fenced £60million to boost British made Children’s programmes. We believe there is now an equally important concern that BAME viewers could increasingly turn away from UK television and look to the US for better representation. Should they turn away, this would mean losing a huge number of British citizens as British media consumers, and would jeopardize the justification for other aspects of the British media structure such as the TV licence.
Therefore it is paramount the UK takes immediate action to boost diversity in British broadcasting, to match and even surpass the achievements of the SVoDs, to keep this audience.
Before we propose specific actions – we provide a background on the current challenges the British broadcasters face in achieving diversity. They fall into two camps.
Challenge 1: WOMEN, ETHNIC MINORITIES AND DISABLED PEOPLE ARE NOT BEING EMPLOYED ENOUGH IN BRITISH BROADCASTING
According to the BFI, BAME employment in the film industry is just 3%.
At the current rate, it will take BBC Studios (the part of the BBC that makes programmes) more than 40 years to reach its target of 14% BAME.
For EastEnders set in multicultural London only 1% of directors are BAME.
Women make up only 13.6 percent of working film directors in the UK.
Only 0.3% of the total UK film workforce are disabled.
The BBC has restructured its departmental structures since its first diversity report in 2012 but it appears that BAME diversity in the key departments which make radio and television programmes has gone down over the last six years. In 2012 BBC Vision (the department responsible for making TV programmes) was 9.7% BAME, in 2018 its closest departmental equivalent BBC Studios was 9.6% BAME.
Challenge 2: INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION COMPANIES ARE NOT DIVERSE ENOUGH
The vast majority of UK programmes are made by independent production companies.
As per the challenge above, it is imperative of course that these independent production companies themselves increase and set achievable targets for the employment at all levels of women, BAME people, disabled people and other underrepresented groups in their companies.
However, we also need to encourage the development of production companies that are actually run and overseen by people from diverse backgrounds, not just have people being employed at less senior levels.
Broadcast magazine has just published the first ever survey of BAME-led indies – commissioned together with us – to find out their views on the future of the British broadcasting industry and their prospects for influence and survival.
The survey found:
1. Broadcasters are commissioning more diverse work but from “predominantly white, privileged companies” who then cherry pick talent from BAME-led indies.
2. BAME led indies ask for but do not get the face time they need with commissioners, and therefore suffer in comparison to their white counterparts.
3. The BAME stories that are commissioned often lack authenticity or conform to clichéd story lines.
4. BAME-led indies said they receive a better hearing and see more opportunities talking to Netflix and other streaming services than traditional broadcasters. This is despite the fact that Netflix and SVoDs make up only 7% of UK production spend.
Separate to the survey our research has found that of the “100 top indies”, a list Televisual Magazine publishes every year, only one of them, Voltage TV whose CEO and Managing Director are both Asian, could be described as a BAME-led indie. Of the other 99 the magazine listed people in important positions CEO, Managing Director CFOs etc. In over 300 names only 4 were people of colour.
In the discussions we have had, but based on anecdotal rather than structured evidence, we expect similar reports from women or disabled-led companies.
Having set out the current diversity challenges the industry is facing, we turn to how the UK broadcasting industry can address the challenges directly, and, as a co-benefit, compete effectively against SVoDs, in order to ensure the entire industry’s continued viability for years to come.
THREE SOLUTIONS
CONTESTABLE FUNDS
We believe that the principle taken by the government to create a contestable fund of £60 million to boost production of new children’s television content and halt the decline of U.K.-produced children’s content should be used to boost diverse productions.
The contestable Children’s fund already recognizes the importance of diversity and has said “Programmes from new and diverse backgrounds… will be of particular focus”. The fact that the principle of diversity is already acknowledged in the context of contestable funds means that it is only a small step to expand this beyond Children’s programmes and apply it to diversity more broadly.
All the concerns of children and young people turning away from domestically produced television in favour of US television apply for diverse audiences as evidenced by the report by Kantar Media for Ofcom which says that BAME and LGBTQ audiences are already turning towards SVoDs.
LEARNING FROM REGIONAL DIVERSITY
Ofcom and UK broadcasters have been able to dramatically increase the number of programmes produced, programme spend and the health of regional indies out of London by ring-fencing production spend and programme hours produced by indies outside of London.
In 2003 only 3.7% of the BBC’s core programming spend was spent in Scotland
In 2003 less than 9% of BBC’s network programmes were made outside of the M25
Now over 50% of BBC’s network programmes are made outside and programming spend in Scotland alone has increased by over 300%
This is not only important for the BBC but by growing the industry outside of London, Channel 4 can now move productions outside of London. It has a multiplier effect.
To effectively ring-fence diverse productions and diverse-led indies Ofcom would need to define what a “diverse production” is, similar to how it currently defines an “out of London” production. Both the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, have written to Ofcom to request them to provide such a definition for UK broadcasters to use as a guide.
The lack of ring-fenced funds for diverse indies causes indies such as Sugar Films, a BAME-led indie, to recently open offices in Wales so it could be eligible for ring-fenced Welsh money…. Where we have a situation that black people have to move from London, (the city with the highest number of black residents), to Wales because regional diversity seems to trump BAME diversity we have a system which is broken.
DIVERSITY TAX BREAKS (INDUSTRY WIDE SOLUTION)
Tax breaks in the film and television industry in the UK are proven to work.
Since tax breaks started in 2007 employment in the film and creative industries has grown 5% on average every year and is nearly 2 million. Compared to just 1.2% overall employment growth in the rest of the UK
We see no reason why tax breaks specifically favouring productions which meet certain diverse criteria would not equally grow diversity by 5% every year.
HOW WOULD A PRODUCTION QUALIFY FOR A TAX BREAK?
A production would have to meet 3 of the 4 criteria:
1. The Director is a woman and/or disabled and/or from a BAME background.
2. The Writer is a woman and/or disabled and/or from a BAME background.
3. The Director of Photography is a woman and/or disabled and/or from a BAME background.
4. 50% of staff spend behind the camera is on women staff, or 14% on BAME staff or 18% percent disabled staff.
This is our suggested criteria although we think this would need to be subject to public consultation in much the same way Ofcom conducts public consultation to define “out-of-London” productions.
However, we also believe diversity tax breaks should be additional to the existing film and television tax breaks - as opposed to making the existing tax breaks conditional on productions meeting certain diversity criteria. This is because the existing tax breaks are working extremely well and we do not want to put new hurdles in place that might stop them from working or deter productions for the US and elsewhere coming to the UK.
If the tax breaks are additional this will attract new productions (with new money) that otherwise would not be made, creating effective competition to the diverse content being produced by SVoDs. Disabled and female directors from all over the world will then want to bring their movies to the UK to take advantage of the tax cuts.
It is also worth noting there is precedent for diversity tax breaks in other countries:
1. Four states in America have already brought in tax relief for diversity or are looking at legislation; California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York state.
2. And in 2018 France approved a 15% bonus for projects its film council supports in which women perform key roles such as director or director of photography or head of production.
CONCLUSION
SVoDs – especially from the US - are succeeding. There is no doubt about it. And part (if not the major) key to their success has been because of their diversity. Why are they diverse? It is because they have a different economic model to the traditional broadcasters. While SVoDs should be and are now being introduced in the UK, the fact is that the traditional UK broadcasters and their traditional products are, and should be, here to stay as well.
But if British broadcasters are going to compete effectively against SVoDs from abroad with their own SVoDs and other products, we believe there is only one tool available. Increase diversity. Any other methods to compete will be temporary and eventually ineffective.
How to use this tool? We believe diversity in the UK media should not be viewed as a simple HR problem relying on solutions such as increased training programmes or better hiring practices. Instead the lack of diversity in British and television today is an example of a persistent and deep market failure in just the same way the lack of regional productions, Children’s programmes and overall size of the UK film industry was twelve years ago. These market failures can only be addressed with financial solutions and/or government/regulatory interventions. In this submission, we have presented practical results of such interventions, and suggested three practical solutions to increase diversity that can be put into place today. We urge the committee to adopt these proposals and recommend Government makes appropriate legislative and regulatory changes.
The future success of UK broadcasting lies not in SvODs. It lies in its diversity. Truly addressing and turning around the lack of diversity in the UK broadcasting industry is the only way to provide a viable future for UK broadcasting, here in Britain and beyond.
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