In this article:

Report on the UK-based broadcasting industry

Ofcom is the regulator for the communications services that we use and rely on each day. We make sure people get the best from their broadband, home phone and mobile services, as well as keeping an eye on TV and radio.

For the past four years, Ofcom has held the broadcasting industry to account with annual monitoring reports on its workforce diversity. This year we are reporting on figures from a pre-pandemic period, 2019/20, which also precedes the death of George Floyd, the subsequent anti-racism protests and the ongoing public debate on racial inequality. Because of the significance of all these events, we also consider the response of broadcasters after the 2019/20 reporting period. 

For the first time we have combined TV and Radio findings. In this report, we look at the actions that Ofcom and the broadcasters need to take to become quicker and more effective in making their workforces representative of the country. As part of the report we have published three new datarich interactive tools, providing greater access to the information we collect. These can be explored by characteristic or by broadcaster, and also provide the full text of broadcasters’ answers to our questionnaire, enabling people to interrogate the make-up of companies’ workforces and understand the work broadcasters are doing to effect change.

Workforce diversity in 2019/20 

Before the Covid-19 crisis there was some progress: 

• More data was collected: this is particularly true for Radio broadcasters who are now collecting information on 93% of their workforce for disability, compared with 74% for Television broadcasters. 

• Broadcasters (TV and Radio combined) appear to be employing a greater proportion of women (48%) minority ethnic people (14%) and disabled people (7%) in the UK than they did last year. 

• Broadcasters undertook a range of activities to diversify their workforces and create a more inclusive culture within their organisations. 

But progress is still far too slow and too many people are being left behind as some groups remain consistently under-represented: 

• Disabled people are under-represented at all organisational levels; overall, only 7% of Television employees and 6% of Radio employees were disabled, compared with 19% of the working age population. 

• Minority ethnic people – and particularly Black colleagues – are under-represented in senior management across the industry: 8% of those employed by TV broadcasters in senior management roles are from a Minority Ethnic Group (“MEG”) compared with a national workforce average of 12% (which increases to 35% in London and 31% in Manchester).Black colleagues are more underrepresented in senior management than other minority ethnic groups, at 1% (compared with 3% of the working population).

Accelerating change in 2021 

We know that organisational change takes time and the legacy of underrepresentation and missed opportunities can’t be turned around overnight. But we believe that with more focused effort, faster, more sustainable transformation can and should be achieved. We are encouraged by the renewed commitment we have seen across the industry during 2020. Diversity and inclusion must be seen as a shared endeavour if the industry is to change. 

During the next twelve months we particularly want to see progress in these three key areas: 

1. Critical under-representation 

First, we want to see further improvement, and clear targets and plans in these areas: 

• Greater progress in the representation of disabled people at all levels; and 

• A faster increase in the diversity of crucial decision-makers (senior management, as well as employees in commissioning, content and creative roles), specifically addressing the underrepresentation of Black colleagues.

2. Understanding class and geographic diversity 

Second, a new effort to understand and measure representation by class and geography. We know that a person’s socio-economic background and where they live can have a massive effect on their opportunities in broadcasting, where employees are nearly twice as likely to have attended private school as the general working age population. We need to be able to understand better how other characteristics such as ethnicity interact with class and geography. 

3. Accountability 

Third, we expect broadcasters – in particular those in leadership roles - to be accountable for delivering not just diversity initiatives but real change. That includes: 

• setting clear measurable workforce targets and diversity and inclusion objectives, with tangible outcomes; 

• undertaking better, more transparent, evaluation of work designed to produce change, so that efforts can be focused and results accelerated; and 

• holding production partners to account for meeting diversity requirements. 

You can read the complete report here.