The Stage

Decision-makers in TV industry need to reflect multi-ethnic society, argues Phillips

Published Thursday 17 July 2008 at 15:20 by Matthew Hemley

Television will only provide a more accurate reflection of today’s multi-ethnic society if it “has access to talent that reflects that diversity”, Trevor Phillips, chairman of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, has insisted.

Phillips made the claim in a report commissioned by Channel 4 called Superdiversity: Television’s Newest Reality, in which he said that while representation of ethnic minorities on screen had improved, little had changed “behind the mike [sic] and in the executive layers of the industry” compared with 25 years ago.

He said the industry should be identifying writers and commissioning editors from minority groups and added: “It is clear from our work that audiences, both minority and majority, clearly recognise that output is affected by the composition of the creative team - and they can detect it whether this involves a dodgily-constituted Asian family in a soap opera, or - as one BBC executive told us - the shock realisation that during the early part of the nineties, no black person had appeared in Crimewatch except as a suspect.”

Phillips said his research, commissioned by Channel 4 in the wake of last year’s Celebrity Big Brother racism row, found that there were “precious few non-white figures amongst the ranks of the decision-makers” and added: “If the industry is to give everyone else confidence that it is serious, those who run it should collectively start to look a little more like those who pay their wages”.

In his report, Phillips - who was hired by Channel 4 in a private capacity - suggested the formation of a diversity fund aimed at increasing ethnic and religious diversity in broadcasters’ content.

He said the fund would be generated by a levy on “all commissioning budgets above a certain size” and on companies with turnovers above a certain level.

In addition, he said all broadcasters the top 20 independent production companies should agree to a voluntary code that monitors diversity of senior decision-makers in the industry, the results of which he said should be published annually.

Elsewhere in his report, Phillips said the reinvention of the talent show genre, including programmes such as The X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and The Apprentice, had offered a “wave of new opportunities” for people of all backgrounds to appear on TV in equal terms.