Why I’m No Longer Talking to Media Execs About Privatisation of Channel 4

Lack of diversity in the television industry is due to market failures.

It is not due to a lack of good intentions or the actions of individual racists and bigots.

Which is why so many people love Channel 4 and why we are fighting for it.

Channel 4 was set up to directly address market failures in terms of diversity of programming, diversity of talent, and diversity of suppliers.

When it launched in 1982, Channel 4 operated under a remit that demanded that it serves the "tastes and interests not generally catered for" by other UK broadcasters and had a professed "commitment to diversity".

More importantly it recognised that diversity without inclusion was meaningless. Which is why it realised it was not just about increasing the level of melanin when it came to ethnic diversity, but increasing the different voices from Black Asian and minority ethnic communities. It is why in the 1980s it directly funded the Black film collective Ceddo founded by the late Menelik Shabazz.

It is why from 1985 to 1991 it broadcast the current affairs series The Bandung File, and employed Darcus Howe and Tariq Ali, both controversial figures. The former a prominent Black rights activist seen at one point as public enemy number one, and the latter an overtly political figure who campaigned against both US imperialism and Israeli imperialism.

The question is would Channel 4 fund the equivalent of Ceddo now, and would it employ the equivalent of Darcus Howe and Tariq Ali now?

I will leave that for others to answer, but here are some potential indications of what that answer might be.

The truth is for the last 15 to 20 years with some important notable exceptions, such as the Paralympics and the championing of under-represented talent like Michaela Coel, Channel 4 has unfortunately been addressing the market failures it was set up to address less and less, and has not – at least not recently – led the charge in increasing diversity.

Of the old triumvirate of BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Channel 4 is now the only broadcaster not to have a separate head of diversity on its executive committee - although it should be noted Channel 4's Chief Marketing Officer is also its Director of Inclusion and Diversity, and does sit on the executive committee.

It has arguably been the BBC, not Channel 4, who has been at the forefront of increasing regional diversity and growing the regional indie sector.

And, Caroline Hollick is the sole black representation on Channel 4’s CEO Committee, Executive Management Board and the different genre commissioning heads combined – (although happy to be corrected on that).

So what happened over these 15 to 20 years - between Channel 4’s inception of being seen and being expected to be a radical catalyst for change to now, with this highly mixed and diluted record?

The answer is simple; the 2003 Communications Act happened.

Now, before I continue, let me pause because I know I am here to discuss privatisation. And I genuinely want to discuss it. But here is the issue.

Fighting Channel 4’s privatisation may actually be the wrong battle. The call for Channel 4’s privatisation is a response to a symptom of a problem, and not the cause of the problem.

Let me explain, and why I’ve mentioned the 2003 Communications Act.

Over the period from 1982 to 2003, Channel 4 was highly regulated, or at least monitored and managed. The list of license requirements kept on growing in what is commonly referred to as Channel 4’s “remit”.

By 2001, Channel 4 was required to broadcast every week 4 hours of peak-time news, 4 hours of current affairs, 7 hours of formal education, 3 hours of multi-cultural content and 1 hour of religion. Most of these quotas were comfortably exceeded (education by 5 hours a week): the obligation to supply 330 hours of schools programmes a year was over-subscribed by 235 hours.

But then came the Communications Act, which brought in the creation of a new regulator - Ofcom - and with that began a period of a completely different regulatory environment for Channel 4 and all the other broadcasters. And let me be more specific, it was not just different. What I mean was – the environment became a more relaxed environment. Over the ensuing period, we saw the gradual reduction in license requirements.

And by 2016, Channel 4 had a very different version of “the remit”. Nearly all of the fixed quotas had disappeared: education, multicultural, religion and training just vanished.

And where the quotas remained they were either enforced more loosely, for example the case of News and Current Affairs, or were massively reduced - as was the case for Schools programming.

This gradual shift in relaxation, led Farrukh Dhondy to write, and I quote; “a few weeks watching Channel 4 in 2016 leads inexorably to the conclusion that the ‘remit’ does not exist”.

So why do I bring this up? And what does this have to do with privatisation?

Well, I would argue that it is not Channel 4 that was special but the regulatory environment that it operated in that was special and Channel 4’s place in it.

The fact is, the idea of privatising Channel 4 is not new – there were headlines about doing so back to 2016. Why? Well, I would suggest that privatisation is in fact just the natural progression of the more relaxed regulatory environment it has been operating in since 2003.

And so you might ask; “why am I fighting against Channel 4 being privatised?”

And the answer is quite simple.

Publicly owned bodies are far easier to regulate and are far more accountable to the public.

The fact is I want Channel 4 to return to its “remit” – its roots of addressing the industry market failure that is diversity and inclusion - in all its forms.

And I believe the best way to do that is through better regulation, public ownership and accountability.

But to discuss Channel 4’s privatisation without addressing the regulatory failure over the last twenty years is doing a disservice to all the people whose interests the previous regulation sought to protect.

I want a public Channel 4 and a new regulatory environment to formally introduce ring-fenced funds for diverse-led productions.

I want Channel 4 to restructure its commissioning structure so that ethnic diversity is on par with regional diversity – the “Out of London” quota is one of the few areas where Ofcom has actually increased the channel’s license requirements over the last 20 years.

I am definitely behind the fight for Channel 4 not to be privatised - but not on any terms. We cannot maintain the status quo of the last 15 - 20 years. Yes, I expect privatisation could lead to even worse outcomes. But the bottom line is if the debate begins and ends with whether Channel 4 should be privatised it is a serious missed opportunity.

Together we need to avoid privatisation – but we also need to keep our eye on the real prize – which is to restore Channel 4 to the broadcaster with a “remit” that we all know and love.

Correction 31/07/2021: In an earlier version it was not acknowledged that Channel 4's Chief Marketing Officer is also Director of Inclusion and Diversity and does sit on the executive committee

Until the BBC respects the UK's diverse communities, it will never be able to represent the country's diversity

Essay from anthology: "The BBC at 100: Will It Survive?" edited by John Mair.


“I want to be Head of BBC Diversity”

I was talking informally to a very senior executive of the corporation over a coffee in a restaurant just off Carnaby Street in London a few years ago.

The executive’s response was direct and to the point.

“Why on earth do you want to do that Marcus?”. The exec took a sip of their drink and explained their thinking by way of a compliment, “I see you as having a really bright future at the Beeb. You are one of the few Black people with news and current affairs experience at an executive producer level, you’ve overseen some really complicated investigations, and you’ve had to make some really tough Political calls in Scotland.”

Then came the killer punch.

“Head of Diversity will take you away from all of that - it will lead your career up a blind alley. It’s not where you want to be, if you want real power.”

I have no delusions of grandeur regarding my career in British broadcasting in general, and the BBC in particular, but I had heard his argument before and given it some thought.

I responded with what I felt at the time was a power move:

“I guess you and I see diversity slightly differently,” I replied. “Think of it this way; Kenny (I was referring to Ken MacQuarrie) is a major player on the BBC’s executive board as Director of BBC Scotland. He is effectively in charge of one of the most important parts of the BBC - and overseeing over a thousand members of staff and millions of pounds worth of programming budget.

“I don’t want to be Head of Diversity if it’s just as an extension of Human Resources, or Head of Diversity simply advising on how to get a few more Black people or women on screen, or even behind it. I want to be Head of Diversity at the BBC in the same way Kenny is head of Scotland - with real power.

“The BBC needs to restructure - it is not only vital for media diversity, it is essential for the corporation’s survival”.

My power move that day was unnecessary.


Restructuring the job…Widening the core.


Needless to say, I did not become Head of Diversity, and although the BBC did go on to raise both the profile and position of the Head of Diversity role it did not restructure in the way I believed was so vital.

That said, I still believe that restructuring is necessary. To understand why, we first have to understand the BBC’s current structure and charter.

The BBC’s Charter in 2007 states that one of the core purposes of the corporation is to represent “the UK, its nations, regions and communities”.

But this is not new. The BBC has always recognised the importance of representing the UK’s different Nations and the Regions. The 1952 Charter formalised the idea of National Broadcasting Councils and Regional Advisory Councils. These represented the interests and culture of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and different geographic regions both in terms of output and in the running of the corporation.

The importance of the Nations and Regions is seen as so intrinsic to the structure of the BBC that Ken MacQuarrie (then Head of BBC Scotland who I spoke about earlier) who was later promoted to Head of Nations and Regions, described the role he left in 2020 as “one of the BBC's largest and most high profile divisions”.

Then, when Rhodri Talfan Davies took over from MacQuarrie in December 2020, the BBC Director General said Davies “brings considerable editorial and strategic experience [to the role]” (my italics). Note the word “editorial”.

This was precisely the quality that the senior BBC executive in the restaurant told me the BBC Head of Diversity lacked, and why they saw it as a “dead-end” for my career.


What’s missing from the job description?


Now if you hadn’t noticed it already, let me point out the glaring omission from Ken MacQuarrie and Rhodri Talfan Davies’ job titles. Despite the BBC Charter explicitly highlighting the importance of the UK’s “nations, regions and communities”, the job which is meant to be specifically in charge of ensuring this, only includes two out of these three areas: the nations and regions.

Despite it being written into the charter since 1952 there is (still) no one explicitly responsible in the BBC for the UK’s communities.

Many people working in the field of diversity and inclusion have previously seen reference to “communities” in the charter to implicitly refer to diversity.

In 2017, after campaigning and lobbying by Sir Lenny Henry, myself and others this implicit understanding was made explicit when the Charter was updated to include the principle of “diversity”, stating one of the corporation’s core public purposes is, “to reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions” (my italics).

While the BBC Charter correctly identifies diverse communities on par with the nations and regions, the corporation seems to have consistently overlooked them. Diversity at the BBC is fundamentally framed as either an HR problem, or one of influencing the creativity of the corporation. People working in diversity have little or no editorial power, and importantly there is no diversity role on the BBC’s News board. Yet, no one would ever suggest taking this approach to how the BBC oversees the nations and regions.

This is a mistake.


Accept the reality of Britain in 2021.


The reality is that in 2021 the UK’s diverse communities are increasingly and possibly as important to British people’s identities than their nationality (English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish) or IN which geographical region they live.

While the BBC’s structure embedding the importance of the nations and regions, while overlooking communities, might have made sense 50 or even over 15 years ago, it looks increasingly arcane and out of touch with the needs of a modern public service broadcaster in the UK.

The fact is, Britain is a fundamentally different society to the one it was when the BBC was born, in a multitude of ways.

Let’s look at this chronologically.

In 1971 the UK census recorded ethnicity for the first time. That year, the White population made up roughly 97.7 percent of the population. According to the 2011 census the non-White population in the UK is 13 per cent, and the 2021 census is expected to show that it has grown even larger.

In 1980, homosexual acts in private between two men in private were finally de-criminalised in Scotland, despite the Sexual Offences Bill 1967 de-criminalising homosexual acts between two men in England and Wales.

It took until 1995 for the many of the rights we now take for granted of disabled people to be recognised in the UK under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Put simply, how Britain now formally recognises these different communities both in terms of law, and in general public discourse has undergone a rapid transformation over the last fifty years.

Yet, the BBC structures still places communities as an afterthought at best, and completely ignores them at worst.

The BBC has survived, and even thrived, over the last 100 years because it has recognised the importance of reflecting how society and its audience view themselves. Without an organisational structure that prioritises the UK’s diverse communities it is failing to do this.

This is not just my assertion. An Ofcom report in 2018 suggested that many communities in the UK are increasingly dissatisfied with the broadcaster and simply switching off. While another report, Mind the Viewing Gap, in 2015 by digital.i showed that non-White people made up only 6% of PSB viewing despite making up 14% of the population.

Reflecting on my conversation that day in the restaurant with the senior BBC executive I think I made just one mistake. I do not want to be head of BBC Diversity.

I want to be head of BBC Diverse Communities. And when the BBC creates the position - which I believe it will have to one day in order to survive - I hope I will be just about young enough to send in my CV.


This essay originally appears in the anthology: "The BBC at 100: Will It Survive?" edited by John Mair, and is available to order now.

IS THE BBC'S NEW DIVERSITY STRUCTURE WORKING? - Part 1 ethnic diversity

Just under two years ago the BBC radically restructured not only its diversity departments but how diversity reported into the overall structure of the organisation. 

The corporation appointed June Sarpong to the newly created post of Director of Creative Diversity on a part time basis, Anne Foster was appointed Head of Workforce Diversity, and four months after these appointments Miranda Wayland was made Head of Creative Diversity, reporting directly to Sarpong.

Possibly, most importantly, despite the Director of Creative Diversity being a part time role, within the management structure the position sat on the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is the highest management board at the BBC, and it was the first time that diversity had a seat at the top table.

Yesterday the BBC published its annual report, with details on its diversity behind the camera and onscreen. And so the question has to be:

Is the new structure working?

First a disclaimer - so far I have only gone through the corporation’s ethnicity figures, and so this blog post will just examine progress (or lack thereof) in this area, I will do separate posts specifically looking at disability, socio-economic diversity, gender, and other forms of diversity in the next few days. Also I have primarily focused on "BAME", "Asian", and "Black" diversity as, for the most part, the figures for other types of ethnicities are not desegregated.  

PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE

First the big headline: Despite the major restructure there has effectively been no major changes - positive or negative. 

Between 2019/20 and 2020/21 the total number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people working at the BBC increased from 15.7% to 15.9%. If you drill down into those overall numbers the proportion of the Asian workforce has stayed the same at 6.7% across both years and Black representation has marginally decreased from 3.5% to 3.4%. 

All the possible increases and decreases are within the margin of error, meaning that there has effectively been no change.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN DEPARTMENT MAKING PROGRAMMES GOES DOWN

It is of course important to remember that the reason why BBC’s diversity is combed over by so many (including politicians) is because it is a media organisation, and so while the overall number is important the figures that are most important are the diversity numbers of the people actually making the content and with editorial power.

Here, there are some worrying signs.

The department that makes the TV and radio programmes is a sub-division of BBC Studios. This sub-division saw Black Asian and minority ethnic representation fall from 11.1% in 2019/20 to 10% in 2020/21. The percentage of Black staff also fell by almost a fifth from 2.4%  to 2.0%, and the proportion of Asian staff also fell by almost a fifth from 3.4% to 2.8%.

Numbers going down is never a good sign, but in many ways it is the numbers from the Nations and Regions which might be even more worrying for the corporation.

These numbers have stayed relatively flat year-on-year: 5.9% for Black, Asian and ethnic minority representation in both years. And a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points for both Asian representation (2.7% fell to 2.6%) and Black representation (1.2% to 1.1%).

The reason why these numbers are concerning is the fact that as the BBC continues to push more productions outside of London it is now very clear that the ethnicity numbers in no way reflect the parts of the country they are moving to. 

The BBC has shifted productions to Manchester with a non-White population of 33%, Cardiff has a non-White population of 15%, Glasgow has a non-White population of 11%, Bristol has a non-White population of 16% and Birmingham with a non-White population of 42%. 

Unless the corporation can find a way to turn around its out of London diversity figures there is an obvious fear that any increased regional push will see a decrease in ethnic diversity.

NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS REPRESENTATION STAYS STATIC

News and current affairs deserves a special mention in any analysis in the BBC’s diversity figures, and especially when trying to judge the effectiveness of the BBC’s new structure.

BBC news has come under considerable criticism over the last two years for both its employment practices and its editorial decisions. Just before the new diversity structure was announced the BBC made a very public U-turn over its decision that Naga Munchetty had broken its impartiality rules when discussing her experience of racism in regards to a tweet by President Trump. In 2020 the BBC then made another U-turn after defending a reporter's use of the N-word being aired at breakfast time. It still stands by its decision to ban its journalists from attending Black Lives Matter protests or showing any public signs of support for #BLM (even as the England football team continues to take the knee on the pitch). And in a management restructure it effectively demoted its highest Black member of staff  (Kamal Ahmed) who then left the corporation a few months later.

The staff ethnic diversity numbers in news and current affairs have remained relatively static. They went up 0.2 percentage points overall from 15.7% to 15.9%, and they slightly decreased in the Black category by 0.1 percentage points from 3.5% to 3.4%, (Asian representation remained unchanged). 

The reason why news is important when trying to judge the new diversity structure is June Sarpong has made it very clear on several occasions that News and Current affairs does not come under her remit as the Director of Creative Diversity. And so for people working outside of the BBC there has always been the question as to whether BBC news purely sees diversity as an HR workforce issue under Anne Foster, and if so why does the corporation view news differently from the rest of its output?

PROGRESS IN LEADERSHIP POSITIONS GOES UP AND DOWN

Representation in senior leadership positions is a relatively mixed bag. 

Outside of London it went down by over 25%, while in News and Current affairs there were marginal gains - despite the high profile departure of Kamal Ahmed. 

The biggest success story however was in the subdivision of BBC Studios which makes TV and Radio programmes. Ethnic diversity representation in senior leadership rocketed from 7.0% to 10.2%. This is an important and substantial change. The one curious detail about this is the progress was made almost exclusively in the “mixed” category, with asterisks in both the Asian and Black columns as the numbers are too low to report. This means the important progress in this area may do little to dispel the news reports in 2020 of anti-Asian racism at the BBC reported in Eastern Eye and anti-Black racism at the BBC reported in the HuffPost.

SILVERLININGS 

For me the biggest positive from the report is for the first time, for as long as I can remember, the overall retention rate for Black, Asian and minority ethnic people has improved. Non-White workers are no longer disproportionately leaving the corporation compared to their White counterparts.

This is a massive turn around. It has been an open secret for a long time that until the BBC could get a grip on retention issues then other policies to increase ethnic diversity would be the equivalent of pouring more water into a bucket with a hole in it.

However the BBC is not quite out of the woods yet when it comes to addressing its retention issues as Black staff are still more likely to leave than their other colleagues, and workers of colour in general are less likely to receive a redundancy package when they do leave.

NEVER MIND BEHIND THE CAMERA - WHAT ABOUT THE PROGRAMMES?

There is no doubt that there have been some high profile commissions by the BBC in recent months when it comes to ethnic diversity, including the Small Axe series of dramas and I May Destroy You.

However, it would appear that Black Asian and minority ethnic audiences are getting less value for their license fee than their white counterparts. 

A considerably smaller percentage of Black, Asian and minority ethnic households consume BBC TV and Radio each week than White households, 61% versus 78% when it comes to TV viewing, and the numbers for ethnic minority radio listenership are so small that they do not even register. 

What is even more worrying is the non-White households that do watch BBC TV each week watch roughly half the amount as their white counterparts (3hours 57mins a week vs.  8hours 46minutes a week).

The one glimmer of hope is the percentage of Black Asian and minority ethnic households that consume BBC Online is roughly at the same level as white households, 62% and 63% respectively.

CONCLUSION - IS THE NEW DIVERSITY STRUCTURE WORKING?

Under normal circumstances I think one would expect better results after such a radical restructure, accompanied with the high profile public commitments to diversity coming from both the outgoing and incoming Director Generals.

2020 however was far from normal.

Covid-19 has meant that organisations across the world have had to rethink their corporate strategies. 

On the plus side many will view simply standing still during these difficult times as progress.

On the negative side some of positive signs, such as higher retention rates and increased online viewing may also just be a blip due to Covid-19, as people were more concerned about job security. Also the other big news story of 2020 - Black Lives Matter - might have meant a higher consumption of online content for ethnic minorities.

Therefore I think it is still too early to say the new restructure has failed, but I do think the annual report should lead to some serious questions, because in the following year standing still will not be an option. 

Channel 4's Paralympics: On Screen Disability is Great - But Let's Not Forget Disability Behind the Camera

Channel 4 has just announced massive strides in on-screen disability representation in its coverage of the Paralympics. Now it’s time to see similar ambitions for representation behind the camera.

On the 15th of June the Sir Lenny Henry Centre published its recommendations for Channel 4’s Black to Front Day - a day highlighting Black talent both in front of the camera and behind it with the ambition of having long term effects long after the day.

The Centre worked closely with Channel 4 and it was an incredibly constructive and positive experience, with the broadcaster taking on board all of our key recommendations.

Key to our proposals was the idea that representation behind the camera was just as important as representation in front of it. Which is why we said “All new commissions for the day should aim for 100% Black representation behind the camera”. We recognised that this is an aspirational goal, but an important principle, that demonstrates that both sides of the camera matter when it comes to diversity.

You could call this the “Olusoga Principle” and the report directly referenced David Olusoga, writing:

‘It is widely acknowledged that there is enough Black talent to achieve 100% representation in front of the camera. The question is what is the rationale for not aspiring to achieve the same level of representation behind the camera. Indeed, we believe trying to formulate an argument as to why the goals would be different runs the very risk of falling into the issue identified by Dr David Olusoga in his MacTaggart lecture when he said:

“There is willingness to accept Black people as performers, in front of the camera, but unwillingness on the part of the industry to make space for them behind the scenes, in the rooms where the decisions are made and the real creativity happens.”’

It was therefore with both excitement and trepidation that I read the latest news that “More than 70% of the Channel 4 presenting team for the Paralympics will be disabled.”

The obvious concern is when it comes to disability Channel 4 is falling on the wrong side of the ‘Olusoga Principle’.

First of all this is an amazing achievement and should be acknowledged as such. According to the latest UK broadcasters’ backed reporting figures disabled people account for only 8.2% of on screen roles, and so a 70% marks major progress.

However I am concerned that I have not seen any figures published yet relating to representation of disabled staff behind the camera.

Channel 4 obviously recognise the importance of representation behind the camera. In 2020 when the channel published its commitment to disability representation it published targets for both on-screen and behind the camera: 12% for workforce representation by 2023, and 9% for on-screen representation by the same year.

Running through the Centre’s report for the Black to Front Day was the idea that this should be bigger than just one day, and that lessons learnt from the Black to Front Day to increase Black representation should be used, where appropriate, to increase all types of other representation.

Channel 4 achieving more than 70% on-screen representation should be applauded, I just hope that the channel rereads our report and sees transferable lessons, and publishes equally ambitious behind the camera targets.