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.
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.
To be a stuck record on this, not all White People are the same. In fact, to look at a picture of white people and say 'these people are all the same because they are all white', is er ....
ReplyDeleteTo repeat, if you want my support, then you need to broaden your definition of diversity. Otherwise it looks like you are trying to form an alliance with privileged white people to throw the WWC under a bus. And I would be very anti-that.
Hang on a minute. That photo of the crew for the Great British Bake Off crew of 2018 has 73 people in it of whom five are people of colour. How many people of colour do you think should be on this crew? the 2011 census has the UK population having 8% Asian British and 3% Black African/Caribbean. That would mean , at 11%, there should be about eight people of colour on the crew, not 5. You are arguing about three people. I think women have more to complain about here.
ReplyDeleteEumaxindia is leading advertising agency in radio Hello FM 106.4 FM Chennai and Madurai. You can now easily place your advertisement in Hello FM (106.4) FM Ads in Chennai through Eumaxindia.
ReplyDeleteHello FM 106.4 Ads in Chennai