Regional Diversity Versus Ethnic Diversity – An Open Letter To Channel 4

Dear Alex Mahon – CEO Channel 4,

On October 31st Channel 4 announced that it would open a new national Head Quarters in Leeds with two “creative hubs” in Glasgow and Bristol.

This is all part of a larger plan to make Channel 4 less London-centric and more representative of the UK as a whole. By 2023 it plans for at least half of its programme spend to be used on productions based outside of London, up from 35% currently and an increase in money terms of £250m.

So what will this mean for ethnic diversity behind the camera?

I understand that fears were raised within Channel 4 that ethnic diversity could dramatically fall - because London has a significantly higher Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) population than other areas in the UK. Just compare London’s BAME population of 40% to those in the new Channel 4 headquarters and hubs:

Leeds with a BAME population of 15%;

Bristol with a BAME population of 16%;

Glasgow with a BAME population of 12%.

And Channel 4’s fears are well founded. Back in 2006, when the BBC implemented a policy to increase the number of programmes it made outside of London, the number of BAME people employed in the industry fell from 7.4% to just 5.4% by 2012.

However, this doesn’t have to happen for Channel 4. Having worked at the BBC in London for 14 years, Manchester for 1 year and Glasgow for 8 years, I have firsthand experience that the relationship between geography and ethnic diversity is a complex one.

Here are some more statistics to prove my point:

12.9% of directors of the BBC soap Casualty are BAME, while only 1% of directors of EastEnders in are BAME.

EastEnders is filmed in London (40% BAME) while Casualty is filmed in Cardiff with a BAME population of only 15%.

When I was an executive producer of current affairs in Glasgow I consistently employed proportionally more BAME people in positions of editorial responsibility behind the camera (researchers, APs and producers) than my counterparts in London. Not only through BBC staff but also with indies.

It was also not unusual for production managers in London to call me for recommendations if they were looking to widen the diversity of candidates applying for a job. Despite them being in a city with a 40% BAME population and I being in a city of 12%.

And I am not the only Scottish based exec with this type of experience. I was recently talking to the executive producer of the BBC4 monologues “Snatches” which marked the 100 year anniversary of British women gaining the right to vote. While it was widely publicized that over 90% of the production crew were women, what is less well known is that approximately a third of the people working behind the camera were from a BAME background, with 50% in key positions such as directors and screenwriters.

The monologues happened to be filmed in London but it was the commitment of the execs to diversity that made this happen. The geography of where it was filmed was not the determining factor.

So does that mean there is NO link between ethnic diversity behind the camera and where a production is located?

I wouldn’t go that far.

Indeed, for the black community London is unique in the UK. Almost 60% of the black British community is based in London. This means that there are support structures and family ties that give London a unique pull on black British people working in the creative community.

As an executive producer I had to recognize these kinds of factors when trying to increase ethnic diversity in the Nations and regions. But it was and is not impossible. People will (and can be persuaded to) move for all sorts of factors, and local BAME talent outside of London exists and are eager for the opportunities to work.

So what does this mean for Channel 4’s new move?

First, geography does matter. I am a firm believer in regional diversity and if we want to represent the whole UK we must move productions outside of London. So this is a great and welcome move by Channel 4. But winning on one type of diversity doesn’t mean we should drop the ball on another type.

Second, the experience of the BBC has shown that if you are not careful moving from an area with a high BAME population to one with a low BAME population can have a terrible effect on the ethnic diversity behind the camera.

But third and most importantly my experience has taught me that as an executive if you have a firm commitment to increase diversity you can do it wherever you are based.

Channel 4, geography is not destiny. You can do this!

Good Luck,

Marcus Ryder

The Myth of “Trickle-down Diversity”

Do more black, Asian and minority Ethnic people (BAME) in executive positions in the media help or hinder the progress of BAME people in the industry?

The answer is a resounding; “Maybe - but at a great personal cost”

A few months ago I was having a lunch with a black person who had just been appointed to a very important position in one of Britain's major broadcasters. During our conversation the person told me; "I am going to do my best to promote black and Asian people whatever that means to my career."

And here is the dilemma. The black person clearly wanted to promote diversity but implicit in their statement is that they know their own personal career might suffer as a result.      

I frequently hear people talk about the need for more BAME people to be in the position of “Gatekeepers” and in executive roles.

The theory is that if we only had BAME people in high level positions they would commission more BAME programmes and content and would increase diversity by promoting and recruiting other BAME people.

Just get BAME people on important management boards and in key high level positions and diversity will follow. In many ways this is precisely what my lunch partner was saying that he was going to do.

I am going to call this argument “Trickle-down diversity". And while we all know black and Asian individuals who have fearlessly worked to increase the number of BAME people working in film and television there is growing evidence that "trickle-down diversity" is seriously flawed as a concept to solve diversity on an industry wide level. 

Study after study has shown that women and people of colour pay a heavy price for promoting diversity.

In a seminal paper titled: “Female tokens in high-prestige work groups: Catalysts or inhibitors of group diversification?” the researchers studied 300 executives both male and female. They found that when men promoted diversity, they received slightly higher performance ratings. They were perceived as “good guys” creating a better workplace. However when women executives promoted diversity, they were perceived as nepotistic — trying to "advantage their own group" and their own performance was then negatively perceived accordingly.

In another study, done two years ago, by the Harvard Business Review researchers found a similar result; "women and non-white executives who advocated for diversity were rated much worse by their bosses."  

And a third study has even possibly worse far reaching implications. Non-white people who have previously demonstrated a tendency to advocate for diversity are less likely to be promoted or get a new job. In this academic paper titled : "Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market"  BAME job applicants who included experiences related to their ethnicity on their CVs were more likely to be passed over for jobs — even at companies that openly valued diversity.

The worry is that when a person from a "diverse" background finally makes it to the higher echelons instead of this having a "trickle down diversity" effect it could actually slow down progress throughout the rest of a company. 

White men on boards who had previously advocated for diversity, when there were no women or people of colour present, might take their cues from the one diverse person on the board or abdicate that responsibility to that one person. And in turn the one woman or person of colour on the board might not advocate for diversity because quite rationally they know that due to prejudice it damages their own career.

This phenomenon could explain another study of Standard & Poor's 1,500 companies over 20 years which found that when one woman reached senior management, instead of another woman reaching those heights becoming easier it was in fact more difficult! 51 percent more difficult to be precise.

So what can we take from this? Does it mean we should all give up hope and not even bother to try and increase the number of women and BAME people in senior positions?

You will not be surprised to hear that I am not advocating this nihlistic approach.

There is no doubt that media organisations and broadcasters in the UK need to increase the number of BAME people in senior management positions. And nearly all broadcasters have at least made public commitments to do this and the BBC even announced that by 2020 at least two members of all its senior leadership boards will be from a BAME background.

However it is important to realize that even if progress is made in this important area these people must be given the support so they can actually help other BAME people without worrying about being penalized for their efforts. 

And that requires a real change in culture and the other “non-diverse” members in senior management recognising that diversity doesn't stop when a non-white face is sitting next to them in the boardroom.

I applaud the courage of so many women and BAME executives who promote diversity knowing the risks to their own careeer. But until these actions stop requiring courage real progress on an industry level will not be made.  

And“trickle-down diversity" might actually do more harm than good.

(My thanks to a Twitter conversation with @BlaakRichardson and @CampbellX who caused me to rewrite this piece and clarify some of the points I was trying to get across)

The press is not the “enemy of the people” but neither is it the friend of diversity

On Thursday over 300 US newspapers published editorials defending the fundamental principle of the freedom of the press and pushing back against President Trump’s assertion that the press  are “the enemy of the people”.

As a black journalist I found them hard to read as they all seemed to have the one fundamental flaw:

Freedom of the press is meaningless if diverse groups are excluded from being able to exercise that freedom in any meaningful way.

I know in this age of political extremes you are increasingly forced to pick sides. You are either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. You are either a Brexiteer or a Remainer. You are either with the “forces of good” or you have gone over to the “dark side”. That is why I hesitated to write this piece.

But if I believe in championing diversity in journalism then I think it would be wrong for me to be quiet on this important issue.

The New York Times editorial quoted the US Supreme Court in 1964 that “Public discussion is a political duty.”

This is the same publication that admitted that of the 20-plus of its reporters who covered the 2016 presidential campaign only two of them were black. They didn’t have a single Latino or Asian reporter covering the election, remember this is the election in which Mexican migration and US-China relations were core election issues..

Maybe the New York Times has reinterpreted the Supreme Court judgment to mean; “Public discussion [amongst white people] is a political duty”.

The Boston Globe, who was the driving force behind the mass editorials, quoted one of America’s founding fathers in its editorial on protecting the freedom of the press:

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.

Of course for black journalists this freedom seems “limited” almost every day as they are systematically excluded from the newsroom - either by accident or design.

Of the 32,900 people employed in newspaper newsrooms across the US, only 12.76%, or 4,200, are racial minorities according to a survey published by the American Society of News Editors and the School of Journalism in 2015. Remember this is 12.76% compared to an ethnic minority population in the US of close to 40%.

As a black journalist this brings me to my most important point.

When we talk about diversity we are often seen as a “add-on”, relegated to the “children's table” while the “grown-ups” talk about serious issues. We are literally invited to talk about diversity at the end of the conversation to add some colour to the debate (pun very much intended).

I have no doubt that over the next few weeks all the publications that wrote articles about freedom of the press will at some point also write pieces about the importance of diversity in the tech industry or at the Oscars or in politics. But that is beside the point. 

When it matters.

When the "real journalists" are talking about a serious issue they don't even think about diversity (and "real journalists" usually mean white and male in case it wasn't obvious)

We must strive to make diversity central to all our journalism. Not just write an additional piece about it when it is convenient. 

In my view the only way you can do that is by making sure the journalists working in your newsroom acurately reflect the diverse society they live in and therefore think about these issues all the time.

The idea that you can write editorial pieces addressing the President’s claim that journalists are the “enemy of the people” and not acknowledge the issue of diversity only demonstrates how far away newsrooms currently are from so many of the very people they claim to serve.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: BBC DIVERSITY NUMBERS

In 2012 I was appointed the Chair of the Royal Television Society Diversity Committee.

One of the first things I did was hold a small closed door meeting with some of the great and the good working in television and interested in diversity to figure out what I should do as the new Chair.

At the meeting over coffee and Marks and Spencer's finger food one of the senior BBC executives told us that in reality the BBC did not really have a problem with ethnic diversity. The figures showed that the proportion of BAME staff at the organisation was only slightly lower than the population as a whole.

I was a little surprised so after the meeting I looked at the numbers and realized the big headline statistic the BBC exec was citing was not all it seemed.

Since then I have I have crunched the official BBC diversity numbers every year for journalists and diversity campaigners alike so they might better understand what they mean. Why?

Because if we do not properly understand the numbers we get to the place where some people, such as the BBC executive, say that we do not have a problem - at least privately.

This year I thought I would examine the first diversity staff report the BBC published in 2012 and compare it to the 2018 report and see what progress has been made in BAME employment.

So what has changed over 6 years at the BBC?

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS

In 2012 12.4% of the BBC’s total staff were BAME, in 2018 this has increased to 14.8%.

The other major progress is the percentage of BAME people working for News has increased from 11.3% to 15%.

For this reason it would at first appear that the BBC has made significant progress in addressing ethnic diversity over the last six years. However when one looks at the figures in more detail there is little to celebrate.

IMPORTANT DIVERSITY FIGURES AT THE BBC HAVE GONE BACKWARDS

The two most important departments that one needs to focus on when it comes to diversity and how programmes are made are BBC Studios and Radio & Education. These are the departments which produce the stories that are told, what we watch and how the UK is reflected on our screens and radios. It is at the heart of media diversity. Not all the roles in the departments are editorial - some are support staff, but they are as good a proxy as you can find, given that the BBC has declined to release figures on the percentage of BAME people in editorial roles, despite Freedom of Information requests for this figure.

So what does this proxy tell us? Over the last six years the BBC has restructured and certain departments have been renamed. Back in 2012 "BBC Studios" was effectively called “BBC Vision” while "Radio & Education" was called “Audio & Music". when they first published the 2012 diversity figures the BBC (rightly) had a stated target that by 2017 12.5% of BBC Vision staff should be BAME and 13.0% of Audio & Music staff should be BAME.

In these two departments BAME staff diversity has gone down. In 2012 the percentage of BAME staff working in BBC Vision was 9.7%. By 2018, that number had not risen - it had dropped to 9.6%. Audio & Music is no different. In 2012 the percentage of BAME staff was 11.1%, six years later it has now fallen to 11.0%.

 (Table on left shows BBC 2012 BAME figures for BBC Vision at 9.7%, Table on right shows BBC BAME figures for BBC Studios at 9.6%)

FREELANCERS - THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Worryingly even the 9.6% and 11.0% figures is an over-representation of how many BAME people work on BBC productions.

To its credit, for the first time this year, the BBC published the size and diversity of its freelance workforce.

The figures reveal that for the all-important BBC Studios freelancers outnumber staff by 5 to 1. (In 2018 there were 6910 freelancers employed in BBC Studios compared to 1345 members of staff)

The percentage of freelancers who are BAME in BBC Studios is only 7.7%

Combining the staff numbers and the freelance numbers gives you a headline figure of at least 92% of people working on BBC Studio productions in the last year were white - possibly more.

If the story is so poor, then why is the BBC emphasizing the 14.8% headline figure?  What does it really mean?

In the last decade the BBC has heavily invested in Global News and reaching audiences outside of the UK. It has created exciting and very new successful outlets such as Persian and Pidgin Services. In 2012 BAME staff accounted for 45.6% of staff working in the BBC Global News division. By 2018 (restructured and renamed “World Service Group”) that percentage of BAME staff had accordingly increased to 54.4%. But these services by their very definition need a large BAME work force often based overseas in Africa and Asia. It is these services - targeting the rest of the world not the UK audience - that have significantly increased the headline 14.8% figure. And they have almost no influence in representing the country's rich diversity to itself.

REAL CHANGE OR WINDOW DRESSING?

Finally the figures even suggest that some other rises in relative BAME employment may have been more “cosmetic” than substantial.

Take the BBC News department. Since 2012 the percentage of BAME employed in this specific department has actually slowly risen by a tenth of a percentage or so each year, but between 2016 and 2017 the percentage jumped by 2.1%. In the same period the “White Other” category also grew from 6.4% to 10.7%. Again a huge jump. This kind of jump in figures usually points to a new way figures are classified or a departmental restructuring rather than a real change.

And it would align with another apparent diversity "success" that took place between 2016 and 2017 when numbers of employed disabled people jumped from 3.6% to 10.2%. Many people I spoke to think this is due to a change in how disability is defined although to the best of my knowledge the BBC has still not publicly explained how it achieved this disability diversity “success”.

If the News numbers really did increase by this amount in a single year it would be very useful for the BBC to tell us how it was achieved so other departments could learn by its example. Or if it was simply due to reclassification and restructuring then that would be good to know as well so we can understand the numbers and do not have false hope that there has been progress when none has occurred.

ACTION NEEDS TO BE TAKEN

I was genuinely shocked when I went back to the original 2012 and compared them to 2018 figures.

There will be those people that will say that due to administrative restructures the departments I am comparing 2012 and 2018 figures to are not exactly the same – after working at the BBC for over twenty years I would argue against this.

But this is losing sight of the bigger picture - that by any definition the number of BAME people making programmes at the BBC has decreased. And the headline 14.8% figure is massively inflated by a non-white workforce broadcasting programmes outside of the UK.

And that reveals the crux of the problem. 

Most of the current and former BAME BBC people I have spoken to while conducting this research say they “knew” that there had been no progress on diversity at the BBC and things had gone backwards. They knew it not from looking at the numbers but from their own lived experience of working there.

In 2018, the BBC figures reveal that BAME staff were more likely to leave the BBC than their white counterparts, and even fewer received severance pay when they leave. Most I know have literally just handed in their notice and left, fed up with the lack of progress and glass ceilings.

Promoting headline figures such as 14.8% is misleading at best and might even hinder real action being taken.

I sincerely hope that BBC executives do not privately think what the executive voiced six years ago at the Royal Television Society meeting that looking at the headline figure the BBC really doesn’t have a problem.

Will the Rooney Rule Increase Diversity In TV?

When it comes to diversity in the media everybody seems to love the Rooney Rule.

But does it actually work?

The answer to that question is a massive “maybe” with a large dose of "it might do more harm than good.”

The Rooney Rule is the idea that to tackle the lack of diversity in an organization at least one person from a diverse background should be shortlisted to be interviewed for certain jobs.

This week ITN revealed that on average its BAME staff roughly receive 20% less pay than their white counterparts.

When it comes to bonuses the figures are even worse with BAME employees receiving roughly two thirds less than their white colleagues.

To tackle the problem ITN immediately announced it will be implementing a version of the Rooney Rule, their exact words were; “A key initiative, effective immediately, includes the policy for at least one BAME candidate to be interviewed for every role.”

Similarly just a month earlier (almost to the day) the BBC announced it would be implementing the Rooney Rule with shortlists for all senior roles at the BBC having to include at least one BAME candidate.

ACADEMICS SAY THE ROONEY RULE HAS NOT INCREASED DIVERSITY IN THE NFL

So what has been the experience of the Rooney Rule?

The Rooney Rule is named after the ex-president of the American Football team the Pittsburgh Steelers – Dan Rooney - who championed the policy to be adopted by the NFL in an attempt to increase the number of BAME head coaches.

At the time it was implemented in 2003 there were only three minority head coaches out of the 32 teams. In 2006 the number of head coaches had more than doubled to seven.

But by 2013 the number had dropped back down to three.

Last year the number had gone back up to seven.

And this year despite seven head coach places becoming free only one BAME coach was appointed.

With the numbers yo-yoing like this the problem of trying to definitively say whether the Rooney Rule works is very difficult. We are trying to analyse incredibly small numbers, a few dozen teams and even fewer coaches, and come to a simple answer.

The fact that the policy can be heralded a success one year because numbers have doubled due to four individual appointments and then labelled a failure because five years later the numbers have fallen back to just three shows how difficult it is to judge its effectiveness.

However when academics have crunched the numbers the conclusion seems to be that they “find no evidence that the Rooney Rule has increased the number of minority head coaches.” ("Moving on up: The Rooney rule and minority hiring in the NFL" published in the journal Labour Economics).

ROONEY RULE DOES NOT INCREASE DIVERSITY IF THERE’S JUST ONE MINORITY CANDIDATE

But what the champions of the Rooney Rule claim is that at least it creates equality of opportunity because BAME candidates get to be seen and interviewed.

This is a dubious claim.

In a ground breaking study researchers at the University of Colorado showed that simply adding one minority candidate to an interview list does not help improve diversity hiring.

When there is only one minority candidate in the interview pool the chances of them being hired is close to zero. There are several theories as to why this may be the case, including the idea that they are seen as a novelty or an outlier or more of a risk.

However if the number of minorities being interviewed is doubled to just two then their chances of being hired rockets.

The study showed how the effect is also true for women being interviewed.

SHOULD WE SUPPORT BROADCASTERS IMPLEMENTING THE ROONEY RULE?

The very real fear of broadcasters implementing the Rooney Rule is that it can be counterproductive as managers feel they are addressing a problem when they more than likely are not.

The business magazine Forbes recently looked at the issue and it criticized the use of the Rooney Rule of being a lazy management tool when what is really needed to tackle diversity is “real investment from senior leadership over a sustained period of time to look at the root causes of the issues and develop the cultural shift that will bring success.”

Forbes magazine concludes that if you want to improve diversity “Don’t implement the Rooney Rule”.

I wouldn’t go that far as I don’t think there is conclusive proof either way.

But what there does seem to be conclusive proof about is adding one minority candidate will not dramatically improve diversity, and so if you really want to implement the Rooney Rule you must have at least two BAME candidates short-listed.

What about the BAME pay gap at the BBC?

The BBC needs to be honest about its BAME pay gap numbers and more transparent about salaries.

With all the discussion around the gender pay gap at the BBC quite a few people have been asking about whether there is a BAME pay gap at the corporation.

So first the good news:

According to independent report commissioned by the BBC and overseen by Sir Patrick Elias (a former Court of Appeal judge) and conducted by consultancy firm PwC and legal firm Eversheds, the BBC has one of the lowest BAME pay gaps in the country. Possibly the lowest for any large organization in the UK.

At an unbelievable 0.4%

Let me give you a few examples to show you how remarkable the BBC's figure is. The BAME pay gaps of different government civil service departments is a lot higher: The Foreign Office has a BAME pay gap of 34%, Culture, Media and Sport 32%, Health 28%, and Education and Communities and Local Government both have a pay gap of 14%. In fact the organization which carried out the BBC audit, PwC, has a BAME wage pay gap of 12.8% , while the BAME pay gap in the bonuses PwC hands out is 35.4%.

So should we be celebrating a BBC pay gap of 0.4%?

The problem is neither PwC, who conducted the report, or the BBC have released any of the raw data which enabled them to calculate this figure. And as pointed out by the BBC’s own Radio 4 statistical programme “More or Less” last week this makes the 0.4% figure almost meaningless.

Let me give you an example of how important getting at the raw data is.

The BBC currently publishes a headline figure that 14.5% of its staff are from BAME backgrounds. Again this figure is amazing and puts the BBC almost in a class of its own for any large media organization.

It is amazing of course until you get the raw data and realize they are including people who work overseas in the World Service and Global News in Africa and Asia, they include people who work in the technical departments and in sales. Once you look at the people who make programmes for the UK the number is probably closer to 8%.

And so the 0.4% figure is the equivalent of a great headline but with no substance behind it and may not stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

We have no idea if the BBC BAME pay figure is inflated by people working in IT, sales or by support staff such as lawyers and accountants.

IMPORTANTLY WHAT THE BBC HAS NOT PUBLISHED IS THE PAY GAP FOR PEOPLE DOING SIMILAR JOBS – ESPECIALLY IN PRODUCTION.

However there are a few tell-tale clues that the BBC has a serious BAME pay gap.

1.       Anecdotally every BBC manager I have spoken to recently believes that there is a substantial BAME pay gap, a lot worse than 0.4%, and coincidently all those managers have worked in production.

2.       The only time the BBC has published the details of the BAME pay gap for people doing similar jobs the statistics were not good. Last year the BBC published the pay of its top on-screen talent the data showed BAME staff are paid far less than their white counterparts with only 10 of the 96 highest earners on the list coming from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. And not a single one making the top 24 earners.

3.       Finally while the BBC (and most labour economists to be fair) like to use the median average to measure gender and BAME pay gaps, if you look at the mean average BAME pay gap the average at the BBC is 5.7%. I won’t bore you with all the mathematics but for there to be such a big difference between the two averages (0.4% and 5.7%) would suggest something very interesting is happening with the pay distribution of the BAME staff and what jobs they are employed to do. Of course we only guess at what that “interesting” thing is – as the BBC won’t tell us.

I worked at the BBC for over twenty years and I still have a lot of love and respect for my former employer. Currently working abroad I can tell my friends and former colleagues that the international reputation of the BBC is taking a terrible bashing over the pay gap issue.

Publishing headline figures that tell people that there is no problem rarely solves a problem and makes an issue go away.

Let’s hope that the BBC publishes more detailed data soon on BAME pay gaps so we can either address any problems or feel confident in the headline figures. Or else I fear the the gender pay gap issue which is being covered across global media will just be the start.

If bosses think employing black people is "risky" I might have the answer

“Employing black people is risky”.

“Employing disabled people is risky”.

“Employing women is risky”.

They might not say it so many words but time and again you hear TV executive producers voicing similar sentiments. It is normally couched in more reasonable language such as:

“I want to improve diversity but when it comes to employing someone I don’t know it’s just not worth the risk”.

Or

“I know it sounds bad but it’s a Catch 22, if people from diverse backgrounds don’t have the track record it’s just too risky to employ them”.

The standard response to these kind of statements to people who champion diversity is to explain why employing people from diverse backgrounds isn’t risky. They argue that the risk is imagined. They say there are lots of experienced people from diverse backgrounds that could be employed. They basically deny the executive producers’ “reality”.

Whether you agree that employing people from diverse backgrounds is risky or not, (and personally I do not believe it is risky), the way diversity champions try to persuade people that is not risky has not been working.

I talked this problem through with my wife who is a development economist and she said the problem of the executive producers’ perceived risk reminded her of the case of farmers in in northern Ghana. I know it seems like a leap but bear with me.

In economics whenever economists talk about “risk” it is usually followed by another word “insurance”.

According to aid workers and economists Ghanaian farmers could be earning a lot more money if they planted more crops and invested more in their farms. But the Ghanaian farmers  kept on refusing to do so saying it was too risky just in case there was a bad rainy season.

Like the advocates of diversity -  government officials, aid workers and economists would try and persuade farmers every year why their fears were unfounded and even if their were bad rains one year in the long run they would make a lot more money. And every year the farmers flatly refused to do so.

That was until one year one set of economists had a eureka moment.

Instead of trying to persuade the farmers they are wrong why not offer them “rain insurance”.

For a small sum of money the farmers could buy insurance against bad rains - the payout wouldn’t be large enough to cause people to ruin their crops on purpose but it would be enough to cover the loss of any extra investment they might have made. It was classic economic theory: the way to combat risk is not through rational argument but through insurance.

In the economic study the farmers who bought risk invested more in their farms, reaped larger yields and made more money. (Coincidentally the risk of bad rains never materialised and the insurance company actually made a profit).

So could insurance work in increasing TV diversity?

Instead of trying to persuade executives that their fears are not real why not offer them insurance.

The way it would work would be quite simple:

If the programme employs a diverse number of production staff they would be able to take out “diversity insurance”. If their programme underperforms by more than 5% in its audience ratings compared to the average rating for similar programmes in the genre then the production company could get an extra 50% of its production fee.

This would encourage production companies, who commissioners trust, to employ more diverse talent.

The exact sum of money would have to be tweaked - too little and it won’t be worth taking the “risk”, too large and productions could produce bad programmes on purpose.

The exact metric as to when the insurance company pays out would also have to tweaked - should insurance companies pay out when a programme’s ratings are 5% lower than the average audience in the same genre or 10%? Should we measure programmes through audience ratings or through audience appreciation scores?

But these are just details that could be easily ironed out.

Insurance was able to persuade farmers in northern Ghana to take “risks” when in reality none existed. 

The question is how could we persuade overly cautious execs to take similar “risks” even when we all know there is no "risk". Insurance might not be the answer but just shouting at them telling them that there is no risk doesn't seem to be working either.