Flagship UK TV Diversity Report Shows Poor Representation In Senior Ranks; Proportion Of Disabled People In Top Jobs Falls Over Five Years

deadline.com:

Diverse representation in the UK TV industry’s most senior ranks remains poor, according to the latest landmark Diamond diversity report, which showed representation of disabled people at the top is going backwards.The report, which is the fifth since the Diamond project was launched to monitor diversity across all broadcasters, indies and genres, showed signs of progress but mostly at lower and mid level.Representation of disabled people in senior roles over the past five years has fallen from 6.6% to 4.5%, miles behind the circa-17% national average and coming at a time when disability representation is firmly in the spotlight.Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, meanwhile, make up 11.4% of these senior roles, quite a way behind the 14% national average.

Although it increased slightly last year, that figure has fluctuated over the past few years.The most crucial roles to productions are simply not being filled by people from minority groups, according to the report, with just 2.1% disabled exec producers, 3.2% producers and 4.6% directors.For Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation, again these figures were all below national average at 7.3%, 10% and 9%.

Only 0.4% of exec producers were Black according to the data for the year to July 2021.Deborah Williams, the CEO of the Creative Diversity Network, which oversees Diamond, said “too much activity has been focused on increasing diversity at entry levels rather than breaking down the barriers to senior level representation.”She added: “It’s a challenge to celebrate when five years on from our first report, the vast majority of our industry’s power-brokers – who commission content and run indies and broadcasters – are still from such a narrow range of