Sir Lenny Henry RTS Speech - Diversity Equals Better TV

Nice to see you all. I am Justin Trudeau, I’ll be answering your questions any minute now.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

It is a massive honour to be speaking today at the RTS. The Royal Television Society, the only place left where the word Royal isn’t followed by the words “shuts down Parliament” or “denies being friends with Jeffrey Epstein”

The RTS has consistently been at the forefront of highlighting the issue of diversity in the television industry.

I gave my first speech at the RTS over ten years ago, talking about how TV desperately needs more diversity and it’s a mark of how far society has come that I’m back today - to talk about how TV desperately needs more diversity.

INTRO: DIVERSITY MAKES BETTER TV

Today I want to address the elephant in the room.

Do we have to choose between great television or better diversity?

At least one very famous comedian, who I am sure you all know, has come out and said we wouldn’t have some of the great classic British comedy we have today if we had imposed diversity on how television was made in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Let’s be honest, we are all here because we all love television.

I love television. I don’t know what you guys are watching at the moment, but personally I’m really enjoying the series finale of the United Kingdom. What’s gonna happen next?

I love watching television.

I love making television.

I love talking about television.

I still get goosebumps when I walk into a television studio.

I still get excited when I see a film crew in the street, and I hang-around wondering what they are filming. Then I call my agent like (on phone) “Why I aren’t I in that?? What do you mean Tena ladies incontinence pants -I can do that – I’m versatile!

And most of all I want to make the best television I can possibly make.

I want British television producers to make the best television programmes in the world.

So is there a trade-off between making great television and increasing diversity?

There are some people who think people like me would put increasing the number of black and brown people, or women, or disabled people working in the industry ahead of making amazing programmes.

That somehow I would be happy to work on a terrible production just so long as it was directed by a woman.

Or I wouldn’t mind if people didn’t watch our programmes as long as we have more gay disabled people in management positions.

There is no doubt a moral imperative for increasing diversity; society is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves and who tells those stories. Diversity creates a better society. And when I am giving evidence at the House of Lords it’s the second thing I say.

The first thing is “wake up, you old bastards!”

But today talking to my fellow lovers of television I want to stress what for me is the most important part of diversity.

I do not believe we have to choose between great television or great diversity.

The fact is diversity makes television better.

EVIDENCE DIVERSITY MAKES TV BETTER

But don’t take my word for it - here are a few facts:

In a study of 1,000 cable and network programmes the University of California found that programmes where ethnic minorities made up 31 to 40 percent of the cast had the highest ratings.

Or to put it another way, considering the study was done in the US, programmes that accurately reflect their audience have the best ratings.

You want your programme to have more social media impact? I have another study for that. The more ethnically diverse your programme the larger the twitter and facebook traffic.

And it is not just about diversity in front of the camera. The same study also found that scripted dramas and comedies that employed more women and ethnic minority writers also did better both in terms of ratings and financial returns.

I’m going to say it again.

Diversity makes TV better.

Don’t believe me?

Have you seen Killing Eve?

Have you watched any superhero movies recently?

Was it just a coincidence that the first time Dr Who finally gets a black writer it immediately wins awards? Love you Malorie Blackman! Trust me, black women have been improving doctors for years. Just go to any hospital and watch one being told off by a Jamaican nurse.

I love TV. If you love great TV like me you too will be a diversity champion.

Diversity is not the thing you do as an afterthought. It is how you make great TV.

DAMNING UK TV DIVERSITY STATS

So how is the UK television industry doing in increasing diversity?

Well let’s put it like this, the last series of Luthor was just Idris investigating why he was the only black guy on the damn show.

In the last four years the percentage of BAME people in the highest leadership positions has increased from 7.01% to 7.14% in 2019. That’s right, despite all the money that has gone into leadership schemes it has increased by nought point one three percentage points!

We haven’t got the new census data yet for the UK population - that will come out in two years time - but most people think it hasn’t even kept up with population growth.

Let’s forget leadership for a second and look at people working behind the camera more generally.

Well if we look at BBC Studios - the department responsible for making programmes - BAME representation has slowly been increasing by zero point 1 percent every year for the last couple of years. Again not even keeping up with BAME population growth.

Now I’m only citing BBC figures because they keep the best statistics but there is no reason to think that the other broadcasters have better figures.

And the BBC also has some real diversity wins to shout about. The corporation’s 50:50 project to increase women contributors on screen has been an amazing success. I also understand they are looking to increase it to cover other types of diversity. We can be so doom and gloomy when it comes to diversity we sometimes forget to celebrate our victories. Can we give the BBC’s 50:50 project a quick round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

But it also kind of proves my point. We didn’t have to choose between good television and more women experts on TV. I don’t know anyone who says - “I used to love the news and then they had all these women experts on giving their ‘womanly’ expert opinion. I just watch repeats of Dad’s Army now instead!”

But while there has been progress in front of the camera behind it there are still major problems and not just for BAME people. According to Directors UK only 13.6% of TV directors are women and according to the BFI only 0.3% of the film industry’s workforce are disabled.

If diversity makes better television - which I 100% believe - is it any wonder that UK television is falling behind.

People are deserting us for Netflix and streaming services - especially diverse audiences. Have you seen Narcos? That show is so diverse the whitest thing in it is the cocaine. While Downton Abbey’s idea of diversity is a white dude who uses the wrong fork during dinner.

HOW WE INCREASE DIVERSITY.

Netflix, Doctor Who, Killing Eve all prove that the idea that you have to make a choice between diversity and great television is simply wrong.

I want to make the best television AND I want more diversity so how do we do that if the industry is clearly failing to make television more diverse.

OK journalists here comes the headline:

Sir Lenny Henry says it is time to scrap diversity schemes and initiatives.

They are simply not working.

So am I saying we should all just give up and go home?

Certainly not.

What I am suggesting is we need to take a completely different approach and it doesn’t involve a bunch of training schemes with no jobs at the end. Or mentoring that goes nowhere. Or a Rooney Rule that increases the number of diverse candidates we interview but don’t employ.

My suggestion today is to take all the money, all the staff and all the time and effort we currently put into diversity and simply use it to increase the diversity of the programmes we commission.

This is not revolution. This is simply copying what the broadcasters do when they REALLY want to increase diversity. Except often they don’t call it diversity

When Channel 4 and the BBC wanted to increase the programmes they make out of London, in other words increase regional diversity, they did not launch a single diversity scheme or mentoring scheme. They put their money where their mouth is and commissioned programmes and productions out of London.

When the government wanted British media companies to increase the number of Children’s programmes they produce, in other words increase genre diversity - they didn’t tell Channel 4 or ITV to send them on commissioning training schemes.

They set up a 57 million pound contestable fund for Children’s programmes. Do you have any idea what that kind of money could do to increase BAME and disability diversity?!

When we wanted to grow the British film industry there wasn’t any mentor schemes put in place. We introduced tax breaks

So let’s just be honest. We’ve been talking about this long enough. We know what works. And we know what DOESN’T work.

Let’s just scrap all these diversity schemes and initiatives and put some money where our mouth is. In fact, forget the mouth, let’s put our money where our BAME talent is.

Every time I have given a speech over the last seven years I have never advocated another trainee or diversity scheme.

I have argued for ring-fenced money in exactly the same way regional diversity has been increased.

I have argued for diversity tax breaks in exactly the same way the entire UK film industry has grown.

At the House of Lords I have argued for contestable funds in exactly the same way Children’s programmes have been incentivised.

And I have heard the most ridiculous excuses as to why these three things cannot be applied to diversity.

Let me recount an actual conversation:

Lenny we LOVE your enthusiasm but we can’t do ring-fenced funds - it’s illegal according to the Equality Act.

Me: Really? Because before suggesting it I got legal advice from Britain’s leading Equality Right’s lawyer and they say its legal. What lawyer did you talk to?

(Embarrassed silence)

It was the kind of silence I usually only get when I do jokes about television commissioners in front of a bunch of media execs who are pitching programmes - you know the kind of gig.

If it sounds like I am frustrated, it is because I am.

Now I don’t need the broadcasters, Ofcom and the government to agree with my solutions. In fact, that is something I have said that from the very start but what I have always said is, if you don’t think my solutions are any good then suggest something better. And rolling out failed policies is not better.

You all know the definition of madness as defined by Einstein: Repeating the same process and expecting a different result.

So let’s stop going crazy - let’s make diversity work once and for all and make some brilliant television.

Diversity makes TV better.

Let’s make great TV

Diversity is like a pizza. What makes it awesome is the mixture, the combination of things on top. Different flavours, different colours, all complimenting each other -so lets do that.

We ordered our pizza ages ago. It’s time to deliver.

Thanks you for listening.

(Printed by kind permission of Sir Lenny Henry)

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”.

When it comes to diversity slowly, slowly does not work

There’s an old proverb which is much loved in the business community, which goes like this:

Question: How do you eat an elephant?

Answer: One bite at a time.

Nearly all of us have heard it before and it is normally applied to when we are facing a large overwhelming task.

I have been to several meetings, and sat on several panels, about media diversity and I have heard senior media executives saying words to the effect of; “I know progress is slow, but we just need to be patient, we are getting there slowly”. They might not be explicitly using the elephant analogy but that seems to be their approach.

However my experience at both the BBC and CGTN (China’s state broadcaster) has led me to the conclusion that when it comes to certain tasks eating an elephant one bite at a time is not always the best strategy. And when it comes to diversity it can actually do more harm than good.

To understand why, we need to think about this metaphorical elephant in a bit more detail.

DEAD ELEPHANTS START TO ROT

The first problem if you try and eat an elephant slowly one bite at a time is that the elephant starts to rot and smell.

If you think of that in a diversity context increasing diversity numbers slowly does not make for a happy workforce. An organization’s diversity announcements often create expectations. When these expectations are not fulfilled in a timely fashion the majority of diverse talent, both inside and outside the organization, can become disillusioned and disgruntled.

Team morale falling? Low retention rates of diverse staff?

That is the smell of an elephant going off.

DIVERSITY FATIGUE

Another problem of eating your elephant so slowly is people get sick and tired of eating elephant. Even the tastiest meals can get boring.

When it comes to the issue of diversity, getting bored of eating the elephant is a very real problem and is called “diversity fatigue”. There has been some excellent academic work on the issue of how those tasked with delivering change - from HR personnel to team leaders -  simply burn out. The research points to the problem that despite the best of intentions a lot of diversity initiatives run into the ground as people become disillusioned and tired.

The real problem with taking it “slowly, slowly” is that most people lose interest and end up quitting, or they find themselves concentrating on other tasks where they can achieve tangible results.

THE ELEPHANT IS ACTUALLY GROWING

The other problem is that when it comes to diversity the metaphorical elephant actually isn’t dead but is growing and is growing faster than we are eating it! (Sorry I have really stretched this elephant metaphor).

To illustrate my point I am going to use BBC figures – not because I am singling out the BBC - but because they publish the best statistics for any media organization and I suspect they are indicative of the industry as a whole.

For BBC Studios – the department that makes programmes - the rate of increase in Black Asian and Minority Ethnic people (BAME) has been roughly 0.1% year-on-year - over the last few years. When it comes to BAME people in positions of leadership in the last four years this has increased from 8.81 percent in 2016 to 9.48 percent in 2019 (excluding World Service figures which Ofcom does).

At the same time according to the 2001 UK census BAME made up just 8 percent of the population. By 2011 the UK census recorded that 13 percent of the population coming from a BAME background. And now some projections think that by 2051 the BAME population will be over 20 percent.    

This effectively means that as we slowly eat our elephant one bite at a time the problem is in fact getting worse.

CAN WE SOLVE DIVERSITY ALL IN ONE GO?

My experience at the BBC and at CGTN has shown me that there are some issues where large amounts of resources need to dedicated to the problem at the start if we are going to have any chance of success.

In 2007 I was fortunate enough to be involved in the BBC’s big push to increase its out of London productions. The BBC did not exactly solve its regional diversity problem in one go but it set very high targets that it met in a relatively short time frame. And most importantly it put a large amount of resources behind the task.

In 2016 I was key to CGTN moving from a television news approach to a digital first strategy. Again we did not try and do this gradually, slowly increasing the amount of news we produced for our website. Instead we took a completely different approach to how we did our jobs and resources were put behind the task to make it work.

Neither CGTN’s digital approach nor the BBC’s regional diversity goals would have been met if they had taken an “eat the elephant one bite at a time approach”.

Culturally everyone in the organization needed to see some big tangible successes at the beginning to have confidence in the change.

LET’S TAKE A LARGE BITE!

I do not believe that we can solve all of television’s diversity problems tomorrow. But I do believe that we cannot afford to take a slowly, slowly approach.

Instead what I am suggesting is that we focus our efforts on a few specific issues and put the resources behind it so we can achieve real substantive change. For example this might involve concentrating on disability in two or three specific genres. Or focusing on the number of women in key specific roles – such as directing positions. Or focusing on the number of commissions of BAME-led indies.

People need to see real big successes to believe that change is possible.

Someone pass me an elephant leg, please.

(For the record I do not advocate eating endangered species and no elephants were harmed in the writing of this article) 

Retention - TV’s dirty diversity secret. Or why broadcasters need a Truth and Reconciliation moment

When I first started working for China’s largest news broadcaster, CGTN, they had a problem.

From the point of offering a foreign candidate a job, to them actually working took approximately 6 months. The length of time is a combination of the bureaucracy related to a large organisation and Chinese visa red tape.

And yet despite this massive investment in time and effort by both CGTN and the candidate, on average foreign employees stayed for only 18 months.

The retention rate was atrocious.

CGTN’s answer to losing so many international journalists?

Recruit more!

As the Chief International Editor of CGTN’s Digital news I realised that this strategy was not sustainable.

That is why I have become obsessed with employee retention and so far the average time international employee stays with CGTN is three years and rising.

And when I say “obsessed” I really do mean obsessed. I read everything I can on the subject and take personal pride when international staff renew their annual rolling contracts.

Right now when it comes to increasing diversity British broadcasters are suffering from the same issue, staff retention is possibly the biggest problem.

If you look at the statistics from 2016 the rate Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff leave the BBC outstrips their white counterparts, and has been increasing every year.

In 2016 14.6% of people leaving the BBC were BAME.

In 2017 14.9% of people leaving the BBC were BAME.

In 2018 16.4% of people leaving the BBC were BAME.

In 2019 18.4% of people leaving the BBC were BAME.

In the same four years disabled staff have also left the cooperation at a faster rate than their able-bodied counterparts for two of the four years.

I use 2016 as the starting point because that was the year when it first became obvious that the BBC had a serious problem with several high profile BAME senior execs leaving. The situation was so bad in 2016 that the BBC’s own Radio 4 Media Show even had an item exploring the issue and The Times ran the headline “Black and Asian executives quit ‘snowy white peak’ BBC”.

And yet despite the alarm bells ringing in 2016 the numbers leaving the BBC have continued to rise.

Now I am always nervous about singling out the BBC, and I only do so because of all the British media organisations they collect and publish the most comprehensive statistics. But talking to friends working in HR and diversity at Channel 4, ITV and ITN anecdotally it would seem the BBC is not the only organisation struggling to retain BAME and disabled talent.

The response of so many media organisations haemorrhaging “diverse” staff is similar to CGTN’s initial response, and that is to increase staff recruitment. You see British broadcasters doing this in numerous ways, including outreach recruitment schemes, mentoring schemes, a focus on how to make work experience more diverse and constant talk about “improving the pipeline”.

But increased recruitment can never make up for a lack of retention.

This is for three fundamental reasons:

1. An organisation will never be able to increase diversity in leadership positions if they can’t hold on to diverse talent to grow their careers.

2. Older staff create the culture of an organisation. If you cannot retain diverse staff the culture remains "un-diverse", this means you do not get the true benefits of diversity. Plus if the culture stays the same the younger diverse staff will not stay. It’s a vicious cycle.

3. Recruiting new staff to make up for lost staff is very expensive; advertising, interview time, training, losing institutional memory etc. It all adds up.

There is a lot of literature on staff retention in general and even on retention of diverse staff specifically.

But there is one aspect that is rarely discussed, which I have found essential in retaining staff - Honesty.

And this became abundantly clear last week when I was attending the Edinburgh Television Festival when three things come together:

First, Channel 4's head of Current Affairs, Dorothy Byrne, gave a blistering MacTaggart lecture, the festival’s annual keynote speech, in which she talked about diversity.

Second, despite the amazing speech nearly all the BAME and disabled people I spoke to at the festival were either apathetic or downright negative about the industry’s ability to increase diversity behind the camera.

And third, I sat next to the head of programming at Al Jazeera English who had lived through apartheid South Africa.

Now let me begin by talking about the second point - apathy.

As a manager apathy is the biggest danger sign that a member of staff is about to leave. We all want highly engaged, enthusiastic staff. But according to the literature, the second best staff, surprisingly, are angry staff. When a staff member is angry it normally means that they believe that the situation they are in can change, their anger is part of that process of trying to make their job situation better.

Apathy on the other hand means they have given up hope and have lost faith in the organisation and that their situation will improve. Nine times out of ten apathetic staff are surfing job sites and updating their LinkedIn profile.

And even if they are not actively looking for another job their performance goes down and then the exec does not renew their contract because in the words of one senior exec I spoke to “it’s got nothing to do with them being disabled, they just didn’t seem engaged.”

So why should diverse staff be feeling apathetic when people like Dorothy, and almost every senior television executive, are espousing the virtues of diversity?

That is when it struck me, talking to the South African Al Jazeera executive.

When it came to the end of apartheid it wasn’t enough for people to simply say; let’s move on.

What was needed was a processes called “Truth and Reconciliation” where people who had been in positions of power during apartheid talked about what they had done wrong and victims of apartheid could also talk about their experiences without fear.

Now I am not suggesting public show trials where TV execs confess everything they have done wrong in the past, (although Endemol if you’re reading and want to pitch this as a new format, let’s talk).

What I am suggesting is that broadcasters need to acknowledge their mistakes of the past. There is a need for honesty.

The television industry has been rolling out different diversity schemes for over twenty years, and yet for most under-represented groups they have had very limited success, and in some cases numbers have even declined.

Despite their obvious failure I have never heard a single executive, who announced the rolling out of any of these schemes, admit in the following years that they had failed, and more importantly WHY they failed. There has been a lack of honesty

There has been no “truth and reconciliation” on how the media industry has failed its diverse staff.

I believe that until broadcasters and media organisations own up to their mistakes of the past and are transparent on how they will learn from their mistakes people will remain sceptical about the effectiveness of any announcements about wanting to increase diversity. And apathy will be the order of the day.

Which brings me back to working in China.

The biggest lesson I learnt at CGTN in how to retain staff is to be as honest as possible.

There are cultural and social issues that can be challenging for someone working for a Chinese organisation and living in Beijing. The strategy before I started working at CGTN was for the management to simply brush these problems under the carpet and extol the positives. However I found that as an executive if you simply ignore the problems they don’t go away. Instead your staff will talk about them without you and usually not in a constructive way. By addressing the issues honestly, and where management has gone wrong previously, you build trust and together you can come to solutions.

No longer are staff apathetic on the verge of leaving - they feel empowered.

If we want to retain our diverse staff let’s be honest, admit our mistakes and listen to our diverse talent. In other words let's have a truth a reconciliation moment.

Being a black TV exec can feel like being an endangered species!

Do you have a pension?

Do you want to increase media diversity?

What if we could find a way to harness the money in your pension fund, and your other financial investments, to increase the number of women, BAME and disabled people working behind the camera?

Then you may want to buy “Media Diversity Bonds”

The idea for “media diversity bonds” came about by an off-the-cuff remark from a black television exec recently. We were talking about going to pitch meetings and she told me she is often the only black person in the room and feels like an “endangered species”. 

It was the “endangered species” comment that got me thinking.

WE ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

Are there lessons we could learn from the conservationist community, who are trying to increase wildlife species, that we could use to increase media diversity? 

Let me tell you about “Rhino Impact Bonds”.

Black rhinos are close to extinction from a population of roughly 65,000 in the 1970’s the number has dropped to 5,500. They are the definition of “endangered species” (although 5,500 is still a larger number than BAME people working in the UK television industry - yes I know a cheap shot).

Various attempts to increase the number of black rhinos have failed, and so the Zoological Society of London and Conservation Capital got together to harness the power of the market and launch “Rhino Impact Bonds” 

Financial institutions and wealthy individuals are able to invest in these bonds. 

The money they invest is then used to finance programmes to increase the number of black rhinos. 

At the end of five years if the rhino population has gone up the investors get their money back with interest. If the numbers do not go up the investors lose their investment. The technical term is an  an “outcome payments” model.

The interest (or “yield”) will be paid by charities and governments, who right now are already shelling out even more money with no results.

The principal behind it, is that financial institutions and wealthy individuals want to see a return on their investment, so they will make sure they money is only directed towards programmes that really work.

FROM RHINOS TO MEDIA DIVERSITY

The basic model could easily be transferred to media diversity.

Just like rhino conservation there is a lot of talk and schemes with very little to show for them. 

Better and more targeted money could be the answer. 

Talking to BAME-led indies one of the biggest problems is accessing funds for development and to retain staff between projects. Funds from a “Media Diversity Bond” could be used to tackle this issue.

“Media Diversity Bonds” could be used to cofund diverse productions in exactly the same way the government’s own contestable fund currently cofunds Children’s programmes to increase the number of British Children’s productions.     

As investors want real returns on their money they would ensure that only training schemes that yield results are invested in. 

IT IS ALREADY WORKING

The fact of the matter is the idea behind the “Rhino Impact Bond” is not new and it has already been used to help disadvantaged groups in various countries.

India has one of the most successful bonds in place with the aim of funding schemes to educate young women and girls in rural areas. The bond launched in 2016 increased student enrollment by 116% in less than two years. And investors saw a 15% return.

Colombia launched the “Workforce Social Impact Bond” targeting vulnerable, unemployed people living in Bogotá, Cali and Pereira to increase their employment and financial stability. Launched in 2017 the results of the investment are still to be seen.

EMBRACE YOUR INNER RHINO

So next time you are on a film set and you are the only disabled person there.

Or you are the only female director you know.

Or you are the only black person at a pitch meeting.

Do not be ashamed of feeling like an endangered species maybe we need to embrace our inner rhinos.

Stacey Dooley, BBC Panorama and how not to apologise for a diversity mistake

I regularly write about how diversity and inclusion must be at the heart of everything broadcasters do and not just an “add-on” to their core programmes and policies.

This week the BBC has come under considerable fire for a Panorama investigation into "western" women involved in the Islamist group ISIS, titled “Stacey Meets the IS Brides”.    

In a short preview film shown the night before on the News at Ten reporter Stacey Dooley described watching “women raising their index finger in an IS salute". It was quickly pointed out by viewers that this interpretation of the hand gesture is misleading at best and is actually a symbol of Tawhid described by the Oxford Dictionary of Islam as a sign for “the unity and uniqueness of God as creator and sustainer of the Universe”.

The BBC quickly apologised and recut the Panorama so it did not include this mistake.

Now, many people have pointed out, myself included, that the mistake would seem to illustrate a lack of diversity in the editorial team at Panorama and the News and Ten. Specifically the lack of Muslim staff with decision making power to identify and rectify this mistake before it was broadcast.

The lack of diversity in high level decision making positions throughout the UK broadcasters’ news and current affairs is a massive problem. 

There is not a single major TV BBC news programme (Breakfast, One O’Clock News, Six O’Clock News, News at Ten, Newsnight, Panorama etc) which is headed by a person of colour or someone from a Muslim background. And to the best of my knowledge the same applies for all the UK terrestrial broadcasters - ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

However in this blog post I wanted to focus on another aspect of the recent Stacey Dooley Panorama furore. 

The incident serves as a case study of how not to apologise for a mistake and why the lack of diversity in the apology was a key failing.

First let’s look at the BBC's apology:

"We wrongly described a gesture made by women filmed in a Kurdish controlled detention camp in northern Syria as an 'IS salute'," a BBC spokesman said.

"While IS have attempted to adopt this for their own propaganda purposes, for accuracy we should have been clear that many people of Muslim faith use this gesture to signify the oneness of Allah.

"We apologise for this error and have removed this description from the footage."

When this did not stop the criticism of Panorama and Stacey Dooley the BBC News press office then published two linked tweets:

Let’s dissect what the BBC Press Office has got wrong and how it could have avoided these mistakes if it truly recognised how diversity should have been at the core of its response.

First of all, as a former BBC exec I have been involved in my fair share of drafting and approving apologies and public relations statements and so I have a little experience in this field.

The BBC says “It’s disappointing that criticism has focused on Stacey; every programme is a team effort, so the mistake wasn’t her responsibility.” 

This statement is just wrong. 

The BBC linked its tweet to an article by the Express reporting Janet Street Porter’s criticism of the Panorama programme on Loose Women. Janet Street Porter goes out of her way not to place the blame on Stacey Dooley saying “I blame the producer”. 

No one then takes responsibility for the mistake. Instead the BBC News press team diffuses responsibility blaming the whole “team effort”. Diffusion of responsibility does not make a problem go away. It demonstrates a lack of leadership and the inability of anyone to take responsibility. Personal responsibility sends out a strong statement.

If the editor of News at Ten or the executive producer of Panorama would have gone up to collect an award if the programme had won any gongs, then one of them should have personally taken responsibility for this mistake. 

It is that simple.

Then comes the diversity problem…

At the core of all the social media criticism of the Panorama investigation is the lack of diversity in the production team’s staff that could have allowed the mistake to happen.

If an organisation does not address the core issue, the apology and subsequent PR around the subject will not make the problem go away.

Therefore however painful it might be to the BBC they should have tackled the fundamental problem. 

If I were advising them I would have suggested the following:

"We understand there have been concerns about the lack of diversity in the production team that could have allowed this mistake to occur…” (Address the elephant in the room)

"...BBC News and Current Affairs has a good track record on BAME diversity with 15.6% of our staff coming from a BAME background..." (Use this as an opportunity to tell a good story about the BBC)

"...But there are clearly issues that need to be addressed, such as only 2.4% of News staff are Muslim compared to the UK population of as a whole of 5%, and we still need to look at BAME representation in key editorial positions...” (Acknowledge the problems people are talking about - validate people’s reality)

“...We have of course re-edited the Panorama programme and all related material not to include this mistake…” (Rectifying a mistake is standard practice and so the BBC should not act as if it has done anything special)

“...And more importantly we are seeing this as a valuable learning experience of how we cover these sensitive issues in the future so similar mistakes are not repeated.” (Demonstrate how you will rectify the broader issue)

Finally if the BBC really wanted to get extra brownie points it could add; “We have invited key experts to discuss with the production team how to cover religiously sensitive issues in the future”.

When I talk about diversity being at the very core of everything a broadcaster does this means; from the the point of hiring staff to commissioning programmes, from the point of making a programme to issuing public apologies. 

The inability of the BBC to properly address the diversity issue in its public statement around this issue seems to demonstrate that once again broadcasters have not yet grasped this fundamental lesson.

And most importantly it means some strong journalism has been completely overshadowed by the BBC's #DiversityFail.   

The "Bystander Effect" And Why It's Hurting Diversity

Are media executives suffering from the “bystander effect” when it comes to diversity?

In 1964 a 28 year-old woman was raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment in New York. Thirty eight people supposedly watched for more than half an hour as she was attacked but did nothing, not even call the police.

The case made headlines across the world with everyone asking the same question; why didn’t any of those 38 people do anything to save the poor woman?

And so a new psychological theory was born: “The bystander effect”.

The idea behind the bystander effect is the idea of “diffusion of responsibility” - people are less likely to take action if there are other witnesses who seem likely to do so.

The insidious effect can work in two ways:

First, each witness thinks someone else will step in and save the day.

Second, each person feels morally justified in their inaction as they see other people acting (or not acting) in exactly the same way.

The irony of the “bystander effect” is the more people who are present and able to help the less likely the person in need of assistance will receive any help.

None of these bystanders are bad people. They would want to help a person in distress but once the “bystander effect” kicks in their good intentions do not become actions.

So what has this got to do with media executives and diversity?

During my time as a media executive there have frequently been BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) and disabled talent who everyone recognises as great. The one thing the BAME and disbaled talent all have in common is they needed a break. Whether that break is moving from assistant producer to director, producer to series producer, or series producer to executive producer they need someone in a leadership position to reach out to them.

In my experience media execs are generally nice people - as the cliche goes; “some of my best friends are media execs”. And when I have dinner party conversations with them they all want to increase diversity. At the same time I do not see them giving the breaks to BAME and disabled talent which we can all see.

For a long time I have tried to reconcile this contradiction.

And while I do not think there is any single reason, I firmly believe the “bystander effect” has a role to play.

Not to sound over-dramatic but TV executives are often like the thirty eight people who saw the 28 year-old woman in New York being raped and murdered in 1964 when it comes to helping diverse talent.

TV execs want to help diverse talent, they can see the diverse talent needs help BUT the irony is the more other execs say they also support diversity the less likely each individual exec will feel the need to act. They think someone else will sort out the problem.

So how do we solve the problem?

Luckily for us the first aid community have had to tackle this problem when helping victims of accidents in public and they have come up with a very simple solution: Identify specific individuals and ask for specific help.

So if someone collapses in the street and a first aider is present the first aider does not just call out to the crowd in general for help. The first aid community has found that the best course of action is for the first aider to identify a specific person (often randomly) and say “woman in the red t-shirt call 999” or “man with the shopping bag you will have to help me with chest compressions” etc etc.

This jolts people out of bystander mode and become active participants.

If higher management at UK broadcasters want their executives to increase diversity they cannot just send out general messages to their entire executive team to “increase diversity”. They should identify specific execs and give them very specific tasks:

“Luke, find a disabled series producer by the end of the year and if you haven’t got one explain what you did to try and find one”

“Tim, get me an Asian director for your next series and tell me about all the unsuccessful candidates you saw as well”

Etc etc.

When it comes to diversity there is really no such thing as an “innocent bystander” just people who acted and people who didn’t act. And surprisingly according to the “bystander effect” that has almost nothing to do with how morally good or bad they are as people.