Women in Film and Television Will Suffer More Than Men Because of Covid-19 – Here is How We Can Stop That Happening

An advantage of living and working in China is that you get a glimpse into the future of what is going to happen in other countries with regards to Covid-19.

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to media diversity is whether women will be disproportionately disadvantaged by the outbreak.

Currently numerous film and television productions across the UK have either been put on hold indefinitely or cancelled which has severely hit freelancers – both and women alike.

However, as I said earlier, working in China I get a chance to have a small peak into the future.

The fact is while these may seem like bleak times across the world eventually the virus will be overcome and normally life and work will resume. But if China is any example to go by normal life does not restart all at once. Instead it is staggered, and some parts of the economy and regular life get back to normal before others.

On the Chinese mainland the virus now appears effectively under control domestically with nearly all new cases originating from people outside of China returning home, predominantly Chinese students studying in foreign universities trying to escape the virus.

As things started to stabilize, in the first few weeks offices reopened, followed by shops and restaurants and most recently cinemas have started to reopen. But there are still some places that have remained closed including gyms and schools.

It is this last element – schools - remaining closed that has the potential to exacerbate gender inequality.  

If the UK follows a similar pattern, when things start to get back to normal this could seriously harm women’s careers.

When I was an executive producer at BBC Scotland I managed several women who worked either part-time or compressed hours (working a 40-hour week in a four-day week) because of childcare duties. I have only ever managed one male employee who worked compressed hours due to childcare.

According to the UK Office for National Statistics women still do almost three times the amount of childcare duties compared to men.  

When it comes to the virus and schools are closed women are far more likely to have to look after children.

The consequence of this are obvious and stark.

It means that when productions eventually restart, if schools do not open at the same time, men will be able to take advantage of the opportunities while far too many women might find themselves having to choose between working and looking after children.

If this happens the current statistic that only 24.31% of television directors are women could worsen.

Now, obviously the long-term solution is for family duties to be shared more equally between men and women – especially childcare.  However, this requires long term cultural changes and has proven difficult to shift over the last few decades let alone to change dramatically in time for when the worst aspects of the virus come to an end.

In the meantime, there are nevertheless a few things that can be done to alleviate this looming situation.

First, they could provide daycare and nurseries for working parents.

Second, politicians should be sensitive to these issues and see how they can open schools sooner rather than later as things start to reopen.

And third, the issue should be discussed more widely and openly now, before life starts to return to normal following the virus, so working parents can plan for the coming problems calmly rather than in the face of a crisis.

Sometimes it is difficult to see past any current crisis we might be currently facing, and the crisis facing freelancers due to the coronavirus is real, severe and immediate. I commend the great work being done by organisations like BECTU, broadcasters like Channel 4 and the BBC, and individuals such as Donna Taberer, who are all working hard to address the current problems. But if we want to make sure diversity doesn’t suffer we also need to keep one eye on the future.

Reporting of Covid-19 exposes the problem with the term BAME

The Covid-19 outbreak has exposed the shortcomings of the term “BAME” (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) and why it is important to look at inter-group diversity. 

A very good family friend, who I have known since I was six-years-old, works in international public health. She specialises in public health matters in Africa and Asia. I remember as a teenager asking her what the maternal mortality rate in Africa was and whether it has got better or worse. (I know, I was a strange and slightly morbid teenager). 

Not only did she not answer me but the question seemed to annoy her. 

“The big number means nothing” came her response. “If you are a woman giving birth in Zimbabwe it is irrelevant if the mortality rate has got better in Egypt or Ghana. If you are giving birth in the countryside hundreds of miles from a hospital who cares what the rate is in the urban areas? All the big number does is give a useless average for politicians to use for a nice headline but doesn’t help anyone” 

Her irritated, slightly angry, reply has stayed with me for over thirty years. 

I was reminded of this conversation as two things recently came together: 

First is the global news story that is impossible to ignore - the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Second is a new report by the actors' union Equity that I was given a sneak preview of looking at East Asian representation in UK television. 

The full Equity report will be released at the (online) launch of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity on Wednesday 25th March but the headlines are that onscreen representation of east Asians is negligible. Across almost a year of monitoring the report found the main broadcasters on several weeks often only had two east Asian people on-screen of any description between them! 

While the report specifically looked at on-screen representation, talking to members of BEATS.org (which represents British East Asians in Theatre and Screen) they think the numbers are just as low, if not even worse, for representation behind the camera and in positions of editorial responsibility. 

So what has this got to do with Covid-19 and the term “BAME”? 

For people, like myself, living in east Asia or with a personal connection to east Asia the UK’s reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak seemed to be woefully slow and failed to grasp the full magnitude of the problem for a long time. A senior UK journalist thought I was being "alarmist" on Twitter in February when I said the mortality rate was between 4 - 5% based on statistics coming out of Wuhan. For the record it currently stands at 8% in Italy. (Although the Twitter exchange in itself illustrates the problems of using a single number when they can differ so much from country to country and region to region - I should have remembered my family friend's advice at that point)

But the difference between east Asian reporting and UK reporting is not just about numbers but tone. I have seen UK current affairs phone-ins advertise their programmes by saying they will be able to “allay people’s fears”. I did not know a single person of east Asian descent or living in east Asia, who has been following the outbreak since January, who thinks we are in a place where reasonable fears should be allayed - and unfortunately there are reasonable fears. 

So if people connected to east Asia in Britain have known this since January why was this not properly reflected in our news output? The answer I suspect is connected to the Equity survey and my conversation with BEATS.org. There simply aren't enough east Asians deciding the news agenda in UK newsrooms. 

Which brings me to my main point - how Covid-19 has exposed the inadequacy of the term BAME. 

BAME stands for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic - it is basically a catchall term meaning “non-white”. Broadcasters and media organisations often publish their diversity figures using this term and mark their progress when it comes to ethnic diversity (or lack of) depending on whether their BAME number goes up or down. 

But using this catchall term means BAME numbers can increase while missing the fact that there might be almost zero east Asian representation. 

Newsrooms across the UK could meet their diversity targets and still not employ a single person from east Asia. 

It is not just east Asians who feel that the term can disadvantage them. I know several prominent black people who work in TV and the media who have effectively given up on the term BAME as they feel it does not reflect their reality. Also I know south Asians who feel suitably disadvantaged by the term - especially when it comes to specific issues around on-screen diversity. And there are those that feel that the term is simply to make white people feel more comfortable by not using the term "non-white" as this ensures we do not draw attention to white people's ethnicity.

Personally, I do not believe we should stop measuring ethnic diversity looking at white representation versus non-white representation, and as long as we do that we will need a name for this group and for me BAME is as good as any - although some people prefer People of Colour (PoC) - and I do not like the term non-white as I bristle at the idea of being identified by a negative. 

However reporting these overall figures without context and without reporting the figures that go into making the headline BAME number can not only be misleading but do serious harm, as we think we have made more progress than we really have. If we wanted better Covid-19 reporting from January, increasing the BAME number in newsrooms would've been of little help if the east Asian figures still hovered around zero. 

As my family friend would say, if you are about to give birth in Chad it is of little comfort if a woman in Egypt is more than 30 times less likely to die than you.


(This piece has been edited after a brief Twitter exchange with a senior UK journalist over my use of the 4 - 5% mortality rate for Covid-19 in Wuhan in February)

How to Protect Freelancers and Stop Covid-19 Devastating TV Diversity

Living in China and working for Caixin, the country’s leading financial publication, I have been reporting on and grappling with the economic consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak since January. Now as the virus has become international it is clear that it is devastating the television industry globally and in the UK in particular, with may productions being indefinitely postponed or even cancelled in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.

Some of the people being worst hit are freelancers who survive from one job to another. Canceled productions literally mean no money in the bank and no food on the table. 

And potentially it could be devastating for diversity.

In fact, Covid-19 threatens to be the nail in the coffin for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) television freelancers and BAME-led independent television companies. Here is why.

Over the past 20 years, the television industry has moved to a more deregulated market where more programmes are produced by independent companies, as opposed to in-house production departments within broadcasters. Exact figures are difficult to come by but according to Creative SkillSet between 2006 - 2012 the number of freelancers working in broadcast television grew from 17% to 26% and in broadcast radio they more than doubled from 12% to 25%.

It has often been BAME professionals who have borne the brunt of this shift. 

Historically the freelance economy in television has not served BAME people well where jobs are often found through word of mouth and through informal contacts. This has been exacerbated by the shortening amount of time between projects being greenlit and going into production. According to a groundbreaking study by Prof. Irena Grugulis, this time has decreased dramatically over the last twenty years. Previously there could be several months between a commission and needing to fully staff it, now that time has been reduced to an average of just two weeks. That means TV executives have just two weeks to find a director, assistant producer, researcher, runner and any other staff that might be needed to bring the programme to our screens. Prof. Grugulis thinks that this pressure to staff up a project in a short period of time is having a devastating effect on BAME and disabled people working in television.

The few statistics looking at the diversity of freelancers in the television industry all support the idea that BAME people are disadvantaged but the current structure. According to BBC figures for example BBC Studios (the department that makes TV programmes) has a 9.6% BAME employment rate when it comes to its staff. This drops by almost 2 percentage points to 7.7% when it comes to the diversity of the freelancers it employs.

When it comes to small independent companies that often survive from commission to commission the situation for BAME people might be even worse.  Televisual magazine publishes a list of the top 100 independent television companies every year along with the names of people in key positions in those companies.

Of the roughly 300 names listed last year only 6 people of BAME backgrounds were in key positions. And only one of the indies listed could possibly be thought of as a “BAME-led” company - Voltage TV whose CEO and Managing Director are both Asian.

All of this means that anything that hurts the freelance sector could have an even more devastating effect on BAME people who are already struggling and could push small indies into bankruptcy.

So the question is what can be done to specifically help BAME freelancers during the Covid-19 outbreak?

Here are a few ideas:

1. Even though productions might be currently on hold due to the virus, that does not mean commissions need to be halted nor the prospective staffing up of those productions. Indeed, a longer time frame between commissioning a project and the start of the production might in fact create more space for indies to be more intentional with recruiting BAME freelancers. And having the certainty of working on a production in the future will enable people to borrow against future earnings and plan their lives.

2. In China several regional governments are issuing vouchers that can be spent on specific sectors that have been disproportionately hit by the virus - tourism, catering and entertainment. Similarly, the UK government could issue vouchers or offer tax rebates to all broadcasters that commission productions that meet certain diversity criteria, including employing BAME freelancers or using BAME indies.

3. BAME-led indies should be given a minimum production guarantee for the year after Covid-19 measures are lifted - in precisely the same way regionally based indies are given a minimum production spend guarantee. Again, this would enable BAME-led indies to borrow with some level of security and see them through this tough time.

Living and working in China if there is one thing I have learnt in the last few weeks is even if Covid-19 doesn’t affect your health directly we will all feel its economic consequences. And what is also clear is that without the right policies those economic consequences will hit some communities harder than others.

Looking at my fellow media professionals in the UK let’s make sure diversity does not suffer as a result.

How Media Diversity Led To Conviction of Harvey Weinstein

When it comes to media diversity how much is enough?

The answer might be a lot fewer than you think but with a lot more power than some people might want.

This week the trial of Harvey Weinstein concluded as the former Hollywood executive was convicted of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree.

In many ways the trial was the culmination of two amazing pieces of investigative journalism by the New York Times and New Yorker which succeeded in bringing down one of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry and arguably launched the #MeToo movement.

It also beautifully illustrates the need for diversity in the media and an idea that is all too often overlooked - critical mass.

NOT ABOUT ONE BIG NUMBER

Often when people talk about diversity in a media organisation they look at the overall statistics of the number of BAME people, women or some other under-represented group in an organisation. If they want to go further they might look at the diversity of specific groups in leadership roles. And there have been calls for broadcasters, like the BBC, to publish the diversity in specific roles; editorial roles versus non-editorial roles.

However these kinds of numbers, although important, miss a very important way of looking at the statistics, and that is using critical mass theory.

Critical mass theory, when it comes to diversity in an organisation, is usually defined as the critical number of personnel needed to make a change in that organisation. In media that invariable means which stories are commissioned and how they are executed.

Critical mass changes the culture of an organisation. Changing the culture of an organisation is something that even the most powerful gatekeepers can't do by themselves.

Crucial to the effectiveness of critical mass theory, and this is where so much diversity policy gets it wrong, is where the critical mass is concentrated.

Talk to any HR person and they will tell you that certain parts of a company drive the culture of an organisation more than others.

THE HARVEY WEINSTEIN INVESTIGATION AND CRITICAL MASS

This is where the example of the New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein is so important. The misogyny and sexist behaviour of Harvey Weinstein was well known throughout the entertainment industry long before the New York Times published their seminal investigation. In fact before the New York Times published their investigation another journalist, Ronan Farrow, looked into the story while working at NBC but dropped it before taking it to the New Yorker.

So why did NBC drop the investigation and the New York Times and New Yorker publish the story.

In the words of Ronan Farrow it was all about culture.

According to Farrow at  NBC there was “just (a) baseline casual misogyny. And misogyny is a very damning word, but actually it looks quite banal a lot of the time: it’s not believing that it’s an issue that matters."

The New Yorker and the New York Times obviously had a different culture.

A newsroom's culture decides which investigations are pursued and supported and which are not.

Culture is often messy and hard to pin down.

Both the New York Times and the New Yorker had a critical mass of diversity in the journalism surrounding their respective investigations into Weinstein.

The New Yorker had a gay male lead journalist (Ronan Farrow), he wrote many of his stories with a female journalist (Jane Mayer) and both were supported by a strong female editor (Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn).

The New York Times had a critical mass of women behind the investigation in crucial roles. The two lead journalists were both women, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the researcher was Grace Ashford and the three women were all in the investigations unit headed up by another woman Rebecca Corbett.

I have no doubt that it was having this critical mass of women at the New Yorker and having a high level of diversity at the New Yorker led to one of the most important pieces of journalism in the last twenty years.

And this is where critical mass theory is so important.

DIVERSITY CHANGES CULTURE AND THAT CHANGES JOURNALISM

Too often when we measure diversity in an organisation we look at trying to achieve a certain precentage of women, BAME, LGBTQ+ or any other under-represented group.

While these numbers matter what we should be trying to achieve is a change in the culture.

Creating a culture that allows people from different backgrounds to thrive in these organisations and create a culture in which different ideas are valued.

In 2017 when the New York Times first published its Harvey Weinstein piece it was the actual number of women - four - which was important for media diversity not an abstract percentage.

Similarly when the New Yorker published Ronan Farrow piece it was the culture created by diversity in key positions that led to the piece being published.

The specific jobs they were doing, with real editorial power, were crucial. 

The lesson of this whole affair is that trying to boil diversity success to a single statistic - whether we have 15% BAME representation in the UK or 50% gender representation, could mean we miss the point unless we achieve critical mass in certain areas.

No journalist, producer, writer or director can achieve success all by themselves - just look at Ronan Farrow at NBC. If we want to produce great pieces of work then the critical mass of diversity in a team is crucial.

POLICIES MATTER

There is also one interesting side note to the New York Times investigation.

This critical mass of four women did not happen by chance. The New York Times, in contrast to many U.S. companies, has strong maternity leave policies and Megan Twohey was placed on the investigation just after returning from maternity leave. It is arguable that this investigation was only possible because of the New York Times maternity policies.


(This piece was re-edited following a brief Twitter exchange with Viola Smart @violasmart4 and
Nick Pollard @NickPollard2 to properly reflect the importance of Ronan Farrow and LGBTQ+ diversity)

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.