BBC’s Long-Awaited Update on 2020 Diverse Programming Fund Criticized as ‘Smoke and Mirrors’

variety.com:

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe BBC’s long-awaited update on the progress of a 2020 fund set up to improve diverse content on the public broadcaster has been met with scepticism from some U.K.

industry leaders who have called it “smoke and mirrors.”The BBC’s Creative Diversity Commitment — made in the wake of the renewed Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020 — pledged to spend £100 million ($124 million) of its existing commissioning budget over three years (from April 2021 to March 2024) on diverse and inclusive content, which spans racial representation as well as social mobility and disability.

That divides into roughly £33 million a year. (The BBC’s total spend on TV in 2020/2021 was £1.4 billion.) The fund is intended to apply to a range of genres, and commit the corporation to create content with at least two of the following three priorities: diverse stories and portrayal on-screen; diverse production teams and talent; and diverse-led production companies. (Since April 2021, all new commissions at the BBC have also required at least 20% of off-screen talent to come from under-represented groups.)The BBC revealed on Thursday that, following the first year of the initiative, it has invested £44 million in supporting a total of 67 TV shows across all genres, to increase diversity and inclusion both on and off air.

The corporation is now on track to invest by 2023/24 the full £112 million, of which £100 million will go to TV and £12 million will go to radio.In the fund’s first year, programs were made by 48 different independent production companies, with 73% of those companies having diverse leadership.