Tony Hall Is Leaving The BBC But Increasing Diversity Is Not A Simple Matter Of Changing The Gatekeepers

The BBC needs to worry less about changing its gatekeepers, and more about changing the structures behind them.

On Monday 20^th the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall, announced he would be stepping down.

WHO SHOULD REPLACE TONY HALL?

Following the announcement I have received the usual messages from people asking me who I think should replace him. As I write so much about diversity people have asked me if I think there are any suitable women, disabled or ethnic minority candidates. And of course there are several; from Sharon White and Alex Mahon who are being touted by the trade papers, to Paula Kerger (the current CEO of PBS in the US) to Channing Dungey (the President of ABC) if we wanted to cast our net a little wider.

But implicit in these questions is the argument one often hears, that if we were only able to change the gatekeepers then we could solve diversity.

In many ways when it comes to British broadcasting there is no more powerful gatekeeper than the Director General of the BBC, and so we just need to find the right gatekeeper.

This is not an argument I subscribe to, and it doesn’t standup to scrutiny.

GATEKEEPERS MATTER LESS THAN YOU THINK

Gatekeepers do matter but to extend the metaphor the structures the gatekeepers are guarding matter more.

Take for example the various commissioners at ITV, Channel 5, BBC, Channel 4, Sky and Netflix. All very important gatekeepers deciding which programmes are made and broadcast.

The different broadcasters have very different rates of diversity, both behind and in front of the camera. However the pool of commissioners that all the broadcasters draw from is very small.

It is common for a gatekeeper to move from BBC to ITV to Sky to Channel 4 and back again.

If gatekeepers really mattered as much as people seem to think, then diversity rates of the programmes would follow the commissioners who are good at diversity and fall accordingly. But this doesn’t seem to happen.

Instead the gatekeepers commission according to the structures and demands of the broadcasters they find themselves working in. ITV is poor at diversity and the gatekeepers commission accordingly. Channel 4 and Netflix are better at diversity (relatively speaking) and the gatekeepers act accordingly. What is interesting is the gatekeepers are the same set of people moving between the different organisations.

To underline this point Mark Thompson was the head gatekeeper at Channel 4 as CEO from 2002 – 2004 and was then the head gatekeeper of the BBC as the Director General from 2004-2012.

STRUCTURES MATTER MORE

In my experience at the BBC gatekeepers did not commission more programmes out of London because they were more enlightened about regional diversity. Channel controllers did not broadcast more high-end drama in prime-time because they had a particular love of drama.

The gatekeepers were fulfilling their duties within the parameters of the organisations they were guarding (excuse the extended use of this metaphor). And those parameters are set up by negotiations (directly and indirectly) between Ofcom, the broadcasters, government departments, trade bodies and unions. They also take into account the commercial realities and models the broadcasters are operating under.

It is precisely this argument Sir Lenny Henry, Simon Albury MBE and I made at the House of Lords select committee when giving evidence about diversity and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. We did not concentrate on the individual gatekeepers but how the organisations differed. (One quick example; Anne Mensah is the Vice President of Original Series at Netflix, but has also been an important gatekeeper at Sky and the BBC. Her ability to champion diversity seems to have grown now she is at Netflix compared to her time at the other two broadcasters - I doubt her views on diversity have changed).

DO GATEKEEPERS MATTER AT ALL?

Gatekeepers matter.

Everyone who works in television has stories of good and bad exec producers, good and bad commissioners, and even good and bad director generals.

And working within the confines of the organization good gatekeepers can deliver better results than bad gatekeepers.

For this reason I will be cheering on the people I genuinely hope would make great director generals of the BBC - and my list is replete with great women and people of colour. 

But I will be dedicating more of my efforts to creating structures that will enable good gatekeepers to make positive change and limit the bad gatekeepers from messing up too badly. 

Diversity Burnout is Real - Here's How to Fight Against It

I run marathons.

I started running marathons in 2012 and have so far run 19. I’ve run a marathon on every continent except Antarctica and run one sub-3 hour marathon. I am currently in training to run my 20th marathon in Rome at the end of March.

Lots of people like to exercise and have hobbies. So why am I writing about my marathon exploits on a blog about media diversity?

Because I want to write about doing work around diversity and protecting your mental health.

The truth is I would not be able to do any of my diversity work if I did not run.

Every marathon I complete gives me a simple sense of achievement. The process is incredibly linear -  I put in the training, I am then able to run a marathon. Running gives me a sense of control

When it comes to diversity work it can feel like the exact opposite.

Ethnic diversity behind the camera has hardly budged in the last ten. 

Disability numbers have increased in some media organisations but most people think that is more down to recategorization of people as opposed to actual real increases. 

And while there have been some substantial gender gains one only has to look at gender pay gap issues to question at what cost have these achievements have been gained.

This lack of linear progress was brought into sharp focus less than two weeks ago when Bafta announced its nominations shortlist and not a single person of colour was nominated in any of the male or female acting categories.

The next day Samira Ahmed won her gender pay dispute against the BBC. Instead of simply apologizing the BBC issued a statement implying the employment tribunal had reached the wrong decision.

This was then followed a few days later with the ongoing public debate around the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and whether sections of the media had been racist in their coverage of the couple.

And then just a few days ago the BBC announced it was planning to move major parts of its workforce from areas with a high BAME concentration to parts of the UK with low BAME concentrations. The statement failed to address how it might mitigate any detrimental effects on their BAME numbers.

These four events occuring in less than two weeks highlighted just some of the major obstacles we face when it comes to media diversity

I’ll be honest with you, for someone who campaigns to increase media diversity the last two weeks felt like I was being physically beaten up.

And so I am writing about running.

I am writing about running because I have received a number of WhatsApp messages, emails, Tweets and even good old fashioned phone calls from people who feel the same as me.

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

But I think the direction of causation can run in both directions; doing the same thing over and over and NOT getting a different result can drive you insane. 

The concept of “diversity burnout”, is a well-documented phenomenon and affects the mental health of people working to increase diversity.

A groundbreaking paper in 2017 written by University of North Carolina-Charlotte professor Ryan Miller and six colleagues from the University of North Texas, interviewed seven “diversity educators” from a “predominantly white research institution” .  The interviewees all claimed to suffer from “compassion fatigue,” “burnout,” and “racial battle fatigue”.

The burnout has two main causes; the first is a sense of complete helplessness being confronted by a major task, while the second is facing constant pushback as institutions find ways to undermine or subvert your work.

Assuming we want people to continue to fight for better diversity what should we do? Because asking people to sacrifice their mental wellbeing for possible gains in the future is not feasible or even ethical.

The first is to acknowledge that diversity burnout is real - .people are struggling.

Second, we need to support each other. Whether that  is simply by listening to each other, celebrating our achievements or sharing coping strategies - such as running marathons - we are our own best medicine. 

And third, we must give up on the erroneous notion that progress, unlike my marathons, is linear. If we buy into the idea that progress is linear then the four examples I gave at the beginning means we are going backwards and all our hard work is for nothing.

Also if we believe in linear progress then when there are advances people brush off the need for more work by saying “we might not be advancing at the speed you want but things are getting better”.

The reality is progress is messy and diversity work is messy. We can advance in some areas while going backwards in others. New obstacles can occur that never existed previously，  while other obstacles can disappear  - not because of our hard work but because circumstances have changed.  

And so today I just wanted to write a simple message to everyone who cares about diversity:

I know things can be hard, and I know the last couple of weeks have  not been easy, but please look after yourself and each other.

Do not buy into damaging narratives of what progress, success or failure look like.

And most of all anyone who wants to run a marathon - please feel free to DM me :)

Samira Ahmed exposes bigger diversity problems at the BBC than a single gender pay dispute

The verdict is in.

Samira Ahmed has won her equal pay tribunal against the BBC.

The case has made global headlines. But if you look more closely at the issues and the verdict this was not just a tribunal about a one of case of gender pay discrimination. It brings into question a fundamental business practice of the BBC that may disproportionately disadvantage women, Black Asian and Ethnic Minorities (BAME) and people from disadvantaged groups in general. 

Let me explain why this case exposes a structural problem at the BBC and has far reaching consequences for diversity in the media. 

REACTION TO THE VERDICT

The employment tribunal agreed with Samira Ahmed that the audience feedback programme she presents, “Newswatch”, is similar enough to another programme, “Points of View“, that she should be paid the same as the white male presenter.

Samira Ahmed was paid £440 per programme while the presenter of “Points of View”, Jeremy Vine, was paid £3,000 per programme.

The unanimous judgement of the tribunal was “her work was like that done by Vine, and the BBC had failed to prove the pay gap wasn't because of sex discrimination.” 

Despite the judgement the BBC seems unrepentant, and effectively said that the tribunal had made a mistake issuing a statement saying the pay for Ahmed and Vine “was not determined by their gender”, adding “we weren't able to call people who made decisions as far back as 2008 (when Jeremy Vine’s salary was decided) and have long since left the BBC.” Inferring that if they had been able to call these witnesses the tribunal would have found in their favour.

I was also contacted by two BBC executives (personal friends) who thought the tribunal had come to the wrong conclusion.

At the same time, the tone of the vast majority of mainstream media and social media seemed to be sympathetic to Ahmed and critical of the BBC. And large parts of the BBC’s own workforce, women and BAMEs in particular, have come out in support of the tribunal’s decision.

So how have we reached the position that the BBC can effectively be found guilty of gender pay discrimination and seem unapologetic for underpaying a woman for a job?

Is the corporation rammed full of bigoted sexist pigs?

Having worked there for 24 years - the last eight as a senior executive - and being outside of the organisation for a further four years now, my answer is “no”. 

But in many ways the truth is even worse. 

HOW FINANCIAL PRESSURE MAKE "GOOD PEOPLE" DO "BAD THINGS"

The fact is the BBC is full of nice liberal people who are working in a culture and under a peculiar set of circumstances that causes them to make terrible decisions and discriminate against under-represented groups despite the best of intentions. 

And here is the scary part...I suspect almost every executive producer has made the same decisions that could lead to the same pay discrimination result - myself included.

Let me explain how and why.

The BBC is under financial pressure. Following the financial crisis of 2008 and austerity policies implemented by the Conservative-Libdem government thereafter, the BBC’s license fee was frozen between 2010 and 2017. Despite small increases since 2017 in real terms the BBC’s revenue has gone down dramatically. 

It is against this backdrop that executives are always looking to make their money go further.

One way to do that is to cut everyone’s salaries, especially of the highest earners. But that’s hard. 

So another way to make money go further is to take cheaper programmes made by one part of the corporation and play them in parts of the network that are normally more expensive.

This happened regularly when I was the head of current affairs programmes at BBC Scotland. Cheaper BBC Scotland programmes originally commissioned for a regional (Scottish) audience would be “recommissioned” and sometimes even “reversioned” to play on the (nationwide) BBC1 network. And it still happens now. Cheaper daytime programmes often migrate to primetime, or BBC4 programmes migrate to BBC1 or BBC2. 

When this happens executives overseeing the more expensive slots are happy as they have found a cheap alternative to help them stretch their budgets. And the regional / daytime / BBC4 production teams are happy as they now get a larger audience and more exposure.

Everyone is a winner. Or so it seems...

PAYING STAFF LESS TO DO THE SAME JOB

The management practice of moving programmes around might be good for business but if you take a step back there is usually one set of losers - the staff.

And specifically, the staff who make the cheaper programmes. Despite the fact they are now making programmes which are deemed worthy to fill more prestigious and costly slots, they rarely see an uplift in their salaries. They are getting paid less than their colleagues who were effectively doing the same type of programmes and filling the same slots as before. 

But it is so ingrained in the corporation’s culture that the BBC didn’t - and judging by their public statement clearly still don’t - see it as discrimination.

It is just how senior management makes money go further.

SAMIRA AHMED’S CASE

And so this brings us to the Samira Ahmed case, and importantly, how this ingrained practice becomes discriminatory.

The BBC took a historically cheap programme, Newswatch, made for a part of the BBC where programmes are relatively cheap, the News Channel, and moved it into the BBC1 schedule where programmes cost more. And the minute they moved it to BBC1 the comparison to Points of View soon became obvious, which is made by a part of the corporation with higher wages, the Entertainment department.

You could say it was a perfect storm, but if you look around the BBC you see these "perfect storms" all the time. 

At first I am sure the decision to move Newswatch seemed like a win-win. It eased the financial pressure off BBC1 budgets and for the team working on it all of a sudden they got terrestrial network exposure. Plus in the internal market that operates within the BBC some money might have even flowed from BBC1 to the News Channel easing the News Channels budgets (although I am only guessing at this last point). 

It is of course a win-win until someone points out the fact it is built on the unfair treatment of some workers being paid less for doing the same jobs as their colleagues were doing previously.

BUT IS IT SEXISM?

Now, some people might point out that this has nothing to do with gender, racism or discrimination. A white man could be working on the cheaper programme which replaces the more expensive programme.

That is very true.

But it is also a fact that cheaper programmes are disproportionately made by production teams out of London and parts of the BBC where there are more women and BAME people working.

Just one quick example, over 20% of BBC1’s daytime soap opera Doctors programmes are made by BAME directors, while only 1% of Eastenders programmes are directed by BAME directors. Doctors is substantially cheaper than Eastenders to produce. If the corporation ever did the same money-saving trick with Doctors and moved it to primetime it would disproportionately affect BAME staff.

Similarly, most people I have spoken to do not think it is a coincidence that an Asian women gets to present "Newswatch" while there has never been a non-white on-screen presenter of "Points of View" in its 58-year history. 

CAN THE BBC FIX THE PROBLEM?

So what does this all mean for the BBC?

First of all, this means that this is a structural problem rather than a simple one-off case of gender discrimination.

Second, it means that fixing the problem might have far larger consequences than the BBC has realised. It may require new and difficult conversations around other options for achieving value for money - such as cutting the most expensive salaries, which have historically been held by white men.

Third, if the BBC wants to continue its practice of moving programmes around the schedule, it means looking at everybody's salaries when these moves happen.

And last but not least, it means the BBC’s statement issued following the tribunal’s decision hit completely the wrong tone. Instead of of being defiant it should have said something like:

“We regret that we underpaid Samira Ahmed for several years and fully take on board all of the tribunals comments.

The tribunal has brought to light how BBC management decisions, while not intentionally discriminatory, may disproportionately affect certain members of staff. 

We will look at this case again with the utmost urgency to ensure that these problems are not repeated.

Samira Ahmed is one of our most valued journalists and presenters and we look forward to her working with us for years to come and continuing to produce wonderful content”.

The BBC has many problems. No organisation is perfect.

And as someone who worked there for years I want it to flourish.

The best way it can start doing that is by critically examining the situation it is in and looking at how it can rectify its shortcomings. Being defensive and denying the reality of discrimination, however unintentional, is not how this problem will be solved.