Where are all the disabled people? f you want some light reading, please do not dip into the Creative Diversity Network’s recent report, “Diamond: The Fourth Cut”. The statistics are grim, particularly when it comes to disability. According to the report, the UK TV industry has “urgent” work to do on disability representation, both on- and off-screen. This is an understatement of monumental proportions. As a disabled person who has been working in the TV industry for 10 years, straddling both sides of the camera, I am not surprised by this report. I am almost always the lone ranger, working in an environment with not a single fellow disabled person in sight. I started working as a TV researcher in 2011 at one of the biggest production companies in the country. Despite there being well over 100 employees at the company, I was the only disabled person working there. This picture continued throughout my time in production. The stats in the report support my own experiences in production. In the last year covered, disabled people made up just 5.8% of off-screen contributions, well below the national workforce estimate, which is 17%. While there are several different, and brilliant, diversity schemes in TV production, these are still too few and far between. And once we start talking about disability representation in senior roles – well, we can’t start talking about that, because there simply aren’t any disabled people in senior roles in television. The on-screen representation of disabled people is also shockingly low, accounting for just 8.2% of contributions. As a comedian who appears on panel shows and comedy programmes regularly, I can’t remember a single time where I’ve appeared with another
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‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE’RE IGNORING A FIFTH OF OUR COUNTRY’
Rosie Jones
Aemen Sukkar
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Rosie Jones and Deborah Williams discuss television’s failure to hire more disabled people
