How Channel 4 Can Lead The Industry in Becoming a Truly Anti-Racist Broadcaster

Let me start by saying that Channel 4’s 6 point commitment to anti-racism is much needed. It is the first UK broadcaster to come out with such a statement, and as such it should be strongly welcomed. Every Public Service Broadcasters (PSB) should follow Channel 4’s laudable example.

 

However (you knew there was a “but” coming…) as a black executive producer with over 25 years of experience in this industry, my reading of the commitment is that it is not strong enough to weather the storm of racism that sadly infects our industry, here in the UK and elsewhere.

 

And so I turn to the substance.

 

What I’m going to do below is lay out the problematic aspects of the statement. At the end of their own statement Channel 4 state they are “committed to acting on feedback from the industry and continuing to review these commitments and will update further on our diversity strategy this autumn as part of a detailed new diversity plan.” I hope this blog will constructively feed into this process.

 

I will finish by sharing what I believe Channel 4 should have published to achieve real diversity and culture change in these new times.

 

The result should be part of an ongoing process not a finished statement, and there will be pros and cons to my suggestions too, but what I would like readers (including those in Channel 4 and elsewhere) to be left with is a real sense of the possible. What is needed at this time is not merely a way of increasing BAME involvement in the existing structures but how do we reshape the entire industry to make it fairer and more equitable for everyone. My overall message to Channel 4 is you have consistently shown leadership but “you can do more”.

 

Channel 4’s original statement is in bold my suggestions come underneath each section.

 

So here is how Channel 4 could do more. Step by step.

 

Channel 4’s six-point commitment to anti-racism:

 

1.      Anti-racist: We commit to being an anti-racist organisation

• We are wholeheartedly committed to being an anti-racist organisation – and to calling out and acting upon racism wherever we see it.
• We will use our position as a public service broadcaster, our content and our platforms to educate our audience on anti-racism, and drive positive change – in our organisation, in the creative industries and in society.
• We will always act where concerns about racism are raised in our organisation or on our programmes.

 

Any new commitment of “what we will do”, must also be balanced with “what we won’t do”. This is missing in Channel 4’s commitment. Here in point 1, I am left wondering – what does this mean in practice? Will Channel 4 still commission “The British Tribe Next Door” which New Statesman described as, “lazy, exploitative and offensive TV” and the charity No White Saviors described as, “dehumanising and harmful… making a mockery of African lifestyles”? 

 

I am also left wondering – what practical measures are Channel 4 putting place so that when black actors and staff have an issue around racism on one of their productions they do not have to go to social media to raise their concerns as Rachel Adedeji felt compelled to do with regards to Hollyoaks?

 

The current discussion around Black Lives Matter means we should not continue with business as usual. This involves the very difficult practice of explicitly stating how business has changed and how it is a departure from the business practices from before.

 

Point 2. 

2.                  Our Staff: We commit to strive for BAME equity as an employer

• We are committed to the target that 20% of Channel 4 staff, and 20% of the top 100 paid staff, will be BAME by 2023. 
• Today we are at 17% of total and 14% of top 100 and we must go further and faster to hit this target.
• We believe that by having diversity amongst our most senior decision makers we will unlock change.
• We will launch a new mentoring programme for our diverse staff in 2020 so that they can develop their careers.
• We will continue to voluntarily report our BAME pay-gap as we have done since 2019 and we are committed to continuing to narrow it.  Channel 4’s BAME pay gap was 15% in March 2020.
• We are committed to the Race at Work charter.
• We commit to ensuring that The Collective – our employee representative group for black and minority ethnic staff – will help us deliver positive change within the business.

With the exception of the launching of the mentoring scheme, here Channel 4 re-states the “employment-related” goals and policies it had in place before the current Black Lives Matter protests and unrest. That’s laudable - it is important to keep these in place, especially in the context of Covid-19 when there are concerns that companies could go backwards in their commitment to diversity.

However, I would have liked to see Channel 4 use this opportunity to strengthen these goals and policies, beyond mentoring, to really show they are actively trying to change the culture of the broadcasters. In particular, to recognize that the all important issue is not a simple one of overall head count, or even the headcount of the top paying positions. The issue is the diversity of those people with editorial power – the commissioners.  Channel 4 could have added a separate diversity target in terms of commissioners – possibly making this a target related to a percentage of salary spend OR of programme spend to avoid BAME commissioners only being recruited at the junior level or for less important programmes.

Point 3.

3.                  Our Content: We commit to commissioning relevant and authentic content – that reflects the lives of BAME audiences on an ongoing basis

• A new commitment to double the number of BAME-led independent producers that we commission from by 2023. On the main channel there were eight BAME-led indies commissioned in 2019, and a further 12 were in paid development – in total making up 11% of suppliers.
• We have commissioned a series of short films by black British film-makers responding to George Floyd’s death and exploring the profound resonance with Black Britons.
• We are commissioning a series of longer films exploring different aspects of the black experience and questions about race in modern Britain.
• We commit to ensuring that the lives and experiences of BAME audiences are reflected in programming across all our genres.
• We will drive up genuine BAME authorship of our output by increasing the number of black directors, execs and writers we work with.
• We will strive to ensure all our shows meet Channel 4’s commissioning diversity guidelines.
• We are committed to DIAMOND reporting on diversity and will use the data to improve our representation.

Again, here Channel 4 provides a welcome list of new commitments and programmes they are now going to make, which I am very sure will make a difference and help people understand why the issues being raised by the Black Lives Matter movement are important. We must ensure that any changes being proposed today change the overall culture in the long term.

Take the first sentence – about commissioning “relevant and authentic content - that reflects the lives of BAME audiences on an ongoing basis”. This can only be achieved with commissioners in place that actually know what this experience is, day in, day out. 

Therefore Channel 4 should use this opportunity to mention the key BAME commissioning appointments they have made recently and how they intend to build on this. 

One final point here. DIAMOND diversity monitoring is a divisive issue throughout the industry, with it coming in for heavy criticism by all the UK’s Entertainment unions and its flaws being highlighted by OFCOM the industry regulator. I would urge Channel 4 to work with other independent stakeholders to achieve effective diversity monitoring including Directors UK and the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity.

Point 4.

Our Faces: We commit to fair BAME representation on screen

• We commit to BAME representation being at or higher than the national average in our on-screen presenters, talent and stars.   In our last wave our tracking in 2019, our representation was at 14%.
• We are committed to providing new opportunities for diverse new talent across our content and we have a clear strategy to deliver this.
• We are committed to BAME diversity in our ‘new faces of E4’ talent search which is underway in 2020.

If any aspect of BAME representation was improving over the past few years before the BLM movement it was on-screen representation. So, it is good for Channel 4 to reiterate this commitment. However, it would be even better to see Channel 4 increase its commitment and also make it more specific to where the industry has seen challenges – for instance in the types of roles that BAME on-screen talent get.  That would show that Channel 4 is using this opportunity not to just restate its current industry leading best practice, but to show it’s ready to continuously push itself.

5.                  Our Supply Chain: We commit to fair BAME representation in our supply chain

• We are making a new commitment to tracking and reporting our content spend with BAME-led independent producers.  
• We will launch a new BAME-led Indie Accelerator Plan in which each commissioning genre will identify two BAME-led indies to champion and nurture with a bespoke accelerator plan.
• We are committed to 50% of our remaining commissioning development spend in 2020 being with BAME-led, Nations & Regions or small indies.
• We will continue to be part of the Commissioning Mentoring Network, as part of our effort to grow BAME talent in the industry.
• We are partnering with The TV Collective to support the BAME creative industry through the Covid crisis.

The new commitment to commission from BAME-led independent companies is excellent and the first I’ve seen of its kind in the industry! Yes!.  With Viacom (Channel 5) also publicly working to improve BAME-led indies it feels as if this is an important time for the UK Television industry as a whole and I hope all PSBs follow both Channel 4 and Channel 5’s leads.

But the question remains - how is Channel 4 (and for that matter Channel 5) defining BAME-led indies?

While definitions may ultimately be an issue for the regulator OFCOM and public consultation, Channel 4 could have used this opportunity to propose a set of usable criteria of how they define a BAME-led indie, to give clearer signals to indies about who is covered by the schemes, and make sure all Channel 4’s commitments are measurable and accountable.

Similarly, for the development spend commitment made here – it’s great in principle. However, it is important to learn from the experience of the BBC who, back in 2014, did something similar and committed £2.1 million of its annual development spend to BAME productions. But still today the BBC cannot say anything about its results. Why? Poor definitions, but also the BBC did not track how much of the development spend translated into production spend and production hours. I hope Channel 4 will avoid this mistake.

Point 6.

6.                  Our Business Model: We commit to use our influence as an advertiser-funded broadcaster to ensure BAME representation in advertising

• Our £1m Diversity in Advertising Award for 2020 will be focused on BAME representation within advertising.

The fact that Channel 4 is re-affirming its commitment to the £1m Diversity in Advertising Award should be applauded during these incredibly tough economic times due to Covid-19.

Final note:

We are committed to acting on feedback from the industry and continuing to review these commitments and will update further on our diversity strategy this autumn as part of a detailed new diversity plan.

There is no doubt that Channel 4 has been an industry leader in many ways in terms of diversity. This statement – the first of its kind in the UK media industry – is very welcome. But, having seen broadcasters try time and time again to reiterate their commitments, under various guises, what the BLM movement is calling for is real change to the way the industry works, not just tinkering or scaling-up.

In the spirit of being constructive, and to make it easier for broadcasters – and Channel 4 itself – to see what a statement that might indicate real change looks like, I’ve taken the time to make a strengthened version of the 6 point statement, set out below, which also responds to the key points I made above. I do not believe any one broadcaster or body has all the answers which is precisely why I helped set up the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity to help broadcasters and media organisations when it comes to diversity. I am writing in the capacity of an individual and not in my role as the Acting Chair of the Centre but I am sure everyone at the Centre would welcome the opportunity to constructively work with such an important broadcaster.

Please find my revised statement below.

Thanks Channel 4 for being the first to issue this kind of public statement. My message to channel 4 today is that I hope this is only the start and together we can do even better.