BBC
Director Steve McQueen on the set of BBC One’s forthcoming 1970s drama Small Axe
Why black lives have to matter more Commitment at the top is vital if people from ethnic minorities are to achieve a breakthrough in the TV sector, insists Marcus Ryder
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nother day, another Black Lives Matter protest. Another day, another testimony by a black figure in the industry about all the direct and systemic racism they have faced working in the industry. Another day, another statement by a British broadcaster about how it is responding to the current crisis. When I was first approached by Television to write this piece, the brief was simple: go through recent events, assess the different policy initiatives the industry has announced and offer a prediction as to whether this would lead to lasting change. And so I started to do just that. On 8 June, Sky announced a £30m
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racial injustice fund over the next three years. It will create a diversity action group and invest in programmes that highlight racial injustice. And it will redouble its efforts to increase black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) representation both on-screen and behind the camera. A day later, Channel 4 announced its commitment to be an “anti-racist” organisation, setting out a six-point plan to “be a driver of anti-racism in the industry and improve black and minority ethnic representation”. The broadcaster reaffirmed previous diversity commitments as well as adding a few new ones, such as doubling “the number of BAME-led independent producers that we commission from by 2023” and launching “a new
mentoring programme for our diverse staff in 2020”. Two weeks later, on 22 June, the BBC caused a minor earthquake, in the way only the BBC can, by announcing it would commit “£100m of its content spend on diverse productions and talent” over the next three years. I have highlighted three of the bigger announcements of the past few weeks but they are far from isolated cases. Bafta is consulting on how it can address failings around race (my words not theirs). Netflix has a new “Black Lives Matter” category. And there are a host of additional initiatives and programming by other broadcasters and industry stakeholders. This has all happened against a background of almost daily examples of
