Why We Need To Know The Diversity Of The Individual Programmes We Watch

This week the BBC’s new Director General, Tim Davie, weighed-in on one of the most contentious issues in UK media diversity, although I am not sure he realised it 

The issue at hand is how should the industry report its media diversity statistics?

So what did Davie say and why is this so controversial (and why should I care)?

All will be revealed...

Speaking at an Ofcom sponsored event the Director General trumpeted the BBC’s renewed energy to address underrepresentation and diversity of the people who make the BBC’s programmes. "Now, if you’re making a production for the BBC, we expect a diverse production crew. We all looked at some of those (crew) wrap shots. You just look at it and you go, that is not acceptable. So, you just intervene. You have to intervene. And that is where we can act." 

The pictures he was referring to are well known throughout the industry and their “infamy” are almost exclusively due to the hard work of former Royal Television Society CEO Simon Albury.

Simon Albury regularly collects and posts end of production photographs (wrap shots) where the entire crew of a production comes together to document their time as a team working together. What the pictures invariably reveal is the lack of ethnic diversity and people with visible disabilities working on productions. Albury posts these pictures on social media under the hashtag #DiversityFail.

So what is the controversy that Davie has (possibly) inadvertently walked into? He has seen pictures evidencing the lack of diversity behind the camera and is acting to address the problem. That does not seem too controversial, that just seems like responsible leadership. 

However, the pictures are controversial because they show what diversity looks like on actual programme productions - in the industry jargon this is called “programme level” data - and it is because of seeing “programme level” diversity that the Director General says he was moved to act - not because of broader industry wide data.

At this point I can almost hear half the people reading this blog post who work in UK TV diversity shouting “Yes! That is what I am talking about!!”, while the other half (if they are still reading) have all let out a collective groan.

Whether to publish granular programme level data or to publish data in broad industry wide categories is a highly polarised debate in the UK television industry and it is mainly down to a reporting mechanism called “Project Diamond” overseen by the Creative Diversity Network (CDN).

Without getting into all the statistical weeds CDN collects data on who is working on TV productions and then publishes that data (there are issues around the robustness of the data it collects and you can read about that in a previous post) but a big controversy is how it should publish that data. On one side all the UK entertainment trade unions say they should publish programme level data while on the other side CDN and the British broadcasters, who financially support CDN, say that they either cannot and/or should not publish programme level data and instead should publish broad industry wide data looking at more general trends.

The controversy and arguments has become so entrenched that the unions now advise their members not to fill out the Diamond diversity reporting forms.

So, who is right, the trade unions or CDN?

Despite working in media diversity it is a question I have so far avoided answering.

But it now seems that Tim Davie has answered the question for me. If we want real change we need some degree of programme level data. It is the visual representation of programme level data that has moved him to action.

I am still going to sidestep whether CDN and Diamond should be the method by which this programme level data is collected and published. But what Tim Davie has proved is there is now no question of the merits of policy makers and media executives being able to see programme level data and for that to be in the public domain. General industry wide level data even if it is broken down into sub-categories and genres  doesn’t seem to have the same impact. 

One last point, I have a lot of respect and admiration for Simon Albury and the work he does, but our industry cannot rely on one man posting wrap pictures on his social media account to improve media representation.