Mission Impossible - Can Ofcom regulate TV diversity?

A year ago I found myself sitting at a table with several television execs and a few senior figures from Ofcom, the organisation that regulates the UK media industry.

The television execs were there to advise Ofcom on how they might be able to regulate television diversity better. 

During the course of the conversation it quickly became apparent that Ofcom had no way of monitoring the diversity of who makes UK television programmes. 

To explain, Ofcom DO have the power to compel the Public Service Broadcasters (that’s the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) to provide data to the public about the diversity of their workforce as a whole. However, in some ways Ofcom’s powers are outdated - overseeing diversity is a new responsibility. Ofcom DON'T have the power to ask the PSBs to provide data about the independent companies that make their programmes.

This means Ofcom has a very serious problem.

For example the BBC’s workforce diversity figures include a lot of non-programme making departments so Ofcom are none the wiser of the make-up of who actually makes the programmes.

At the other end of the spectrum is Channel 4 who does not directly employ any programme makers (all their programmes are made by independent companies). Ofcom cannot compel the indies to report their diversity stats so are none-the-wiser of the diversity of C4’s programme makers.  

Regulating what you can’t measure 

So sitting round the table we asked Ofcom - how can you do your job? How can you regulate something that you can’t even measure?

It was not a confrontational meeting so there was a little polite laughter by Ofcom’s officials, followed by responses which amounted to “Yeah! I know! It’s an impossible job.” 

With the way Ofcom currently tries to measure diversity and the powers that it has, it is indeed an impossible job. They have my sympathy.

Yesterday Ofcom published its annual diversity report.

Due to their outdated powers it was deeply flawed.

Misleading statistics

They effectively published diversity figures already published by the major broadcasters which do not reveal the diversity of who is actually making the programmes.

They compared the diversity of different broadcasters which is a little confusing - it is like comparing apples and oranges - as each broadcaster is set up differently (as explained by the C4 versus BBC example above).

And they used statistics from the broadcasters’ industry-wide monitoring scheme - “Diamond” - to measure freelance diversity, despite the fact that they themselves acknowledge that the sample size is so small that there is the risk of “sample bias”. Which means there’s a hogh probability that only productions with good diversity figures will report, while the majority of productions will not report giving a very skewed picture. All this means that Diamond’s figures are effectively meaningless - with time and with more productions reporting this might change, but right now they are not a useful guide to the state of diversity in the industry.

To be fair to Ofcom they mention a lot of these flaws in the report, they also used figures published by Directors UK and the Writers Guild which are extremely robust but only shed light on a small part of the overall workforce, namely directors and writers. And actor Adrian Lester has the best quote in the report saying;

“I think it’s time that the lack of information from any broadcaster not be looked upon as happenstance or a mistake; I think it’s time the failure to collect data should be regarded as a flippant and disrespectful response to everything Ofcom and many others have been trying to achieve for decades.”

What are we trying to achieve?

So why am I writing about the this and why did I tweet about it in the hours after the report was published? That is the question my wife asked me, and is the question she always asks me whenever I tweet or write about a large powerful media organisation, “What are you trying to achieve?”

What I am trying to achieve is very simple. While I think Ofcom's report is welcome in principle,  I am worried it is premature, and ultimately misleading, because of its lack of reliable data - irrespective of the caveats and small print it published.

Solutions

So what can Ofcom do?

Is Ofcom doomed forever to be made to do an impossible job without the powers to fulfil its role?

Now people who read my blog regularly should know by now that I always try and have positive solutions, so here are two:

First, Ofcom could ask government to give them more powers so they can adapt their role to the 21st century realities of the media workforce. To get credible data and compare apples with apples they need to either be able to in future a) directly compel third party suppliers to give them diversity data or b) compel the Public Service Broadcasters to collect diversity data from third parties and freelancers and give that to Ofcom. Indeed, Ofcom could do both a) and b).

There is precedent for this. In the US the state government in California have given their film regulator similar powers. Any film production which takes state funding or applies for tax relief must report their diversity figures. I would argue that making a programme for a Public Service Broadcaster is similar in principle to receiving state funding - at least in the case of the BBC.

The CEO of Ofcom, Sharon White, talking at a conference suggested that Ofcom might seek such additional powers. The problem is Ofcom’s official diversity report does not mention this, although it does mention seeking new powers from government for other aspects of diversity. 

Sharon White is also due to leave Ofcom and so what is verbally said by an outgoing CEO at a conference versus what is written in an official report might mean that it is not prioritised. And also talking to politicians, giving any regulator the power to demand workforce diversity of private companies would require new legislation and may take years.

The second solution is Ofcom could measure diversity in the same way it measures regional diversity. 

Currently Ofcom defines what is an “Out of London production”, they do this by looking at the percentage of workforce salary spent outside of London, where the production company is based, and the percentage of total production spend outside of London. It does not do a head count of how many people are employed (like the first solution this would require new legislation) but having a figure for how many productions qualify as “out -of London” gives Ofcom a very good proxy measurement for regional diversity.

If Ofcom defined what was a “diverse production” - using measurements such as salary spend on BAME/disabled/women, diverse staff in certain key roles and who is the exec - it could then measure how much broadcasters were spending on diverse productions. 

It would not be a perfect measurement of industry diversity, but just like regional diversity would be a pretty good proxy. And most importantly would not require Ofcom to have any new powers.

We all want the same thing

So next time I am sitting around a table with television execs and Ofcom officials I hope we are not talking again about how impossible Ofcom’s job is. And instead we are talking about how to make the impossible possible.

After all, as I tweeted yesterday everyone concerned in diversity in the television industry is trying to achieve the same thing: “Idealy I want to know the diversity of who is making UK TV programmes. It would be great to know the diversity of specific productions and even better if we knew their roles. With the @ofcom diversity report we are none the wiser”.