U.K. media regulator Ofcom says that broadcasters' efforts to improve the diversity of their workforces have stalled.
In its third annual report on representation in the television industry, published Sept. 18, Ofcom revealed the number of women in senior industry roles was largely unchanged at 42%, the proportion of disabled people employed by broadcasters also remains stagnant and workers from minority ethnic backgrounds are still underrepresented at senior levels.
Ofcom, having collected social mobility data for the first time, said the industry is strongly skewed toward people who were privately educated.
The findings arrive in the wake of a House of Lords investigation into the relevance of public service broadcasters in the age of cord cutting, with a report containing its verdicts waiting in the wings. Diversity campaigners previously told S&P Market Intelligence that members of Parliament on the inquiry were increasingly engaging with issues of representation.
Ofcom says it has written to the government to request new powers to collect employment data for a wider swath of the television industry. There is a lack of available information on workforce characteristics including age, sexual orientation and religion or belief, it said.
The regulator found that 13% of workers in the TV industry were from minority ethnic backgrounds, which is higher than the 12% national labor market average. However, it is significantly lower than the labor market average for major U.K. cities like London (36%) where the majority of the country's leading broadcasters are based. Ofcom recommended the industry continue to push for more representation.
Of the top five broadcasters, Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd. parent Viacom Inc. had the highest proportion of employees from minority ethnic backgrounds at 20%, followed by Channel 4 TV at 19% — both increasing by 1% over last year. Comcast Corp. unit Sky Ltd. and public service broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corp., however, stayed unchanged at 15% and 13%, respectively.
Meanwhile, ITV PLC increased by 1% yearly to 10%. Those in senior management roles increased by 1% to 8%, with Ofcom warning that the slow rate of progress meant it would take the industry another three years to reach the current U.K. labor market average of 12%.
At 6%, the proportion of the industry's workforce with a disability remained the same as last year and far below the labor market average of 18%. Once again, Channel 4 and the BBC had the highest levels of representation of disabled people at 11% and 10%, respectively, though these figures also remained flat year over year.
The proportion of female workers in U.K.-based TV companies decreased year over year by 1% to 45%, slightly below the 47% national labor market average. Across the top broadcasters, only Sky at 39% — and to a lesser extent the BBC at 44% — failed to meet the national average.
Overall, the UK-based industry's representation of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people was flat at 4% over last year, meaning it is still above the national workforce average of 2%. Viacom ranked the highest at 9%, followed by Channel 4 with 8%, the BBC at 7% and ITV at 5%.
Ofcom said it could not draw a holistic picture of television's class makeup due to large gaps in the information provided. However, it did reveal that the number of working-class people in the industry at 26% was 12% below the national average of 38%.
Ofcom said its evidence showed that the TV industry is disproportionately recruiting people from private school backgrounds. People working in television are twice as likely to have attended private schools.
Ofcom is urging broadcasters to redouble their efforts to boost representation and to increase monitoring of their targets to evaluate whether they are making a tangible difference.
