BBC: Diversity
Debate between John Nicolson and Angus Brendan MacNeil
John Nicolson
Yes, I do.
Sky will announce this July whether it has been on target. I know many Members would like the BBC to emulate Sky’s ambitions, and it has made strides in placing women in senior executive roles—and should be applauded for it. Some 41.5% of senior managers are now female, but there are still significant areas of weakness on screen. While John Humphrys and David Dimbleby stride manfully through their eighth decade at the helm of BBC flagship shows, anyone would be hard pressed to find a woman over 60, let alone 70, in a prominent role.
When Miriam O’Reilly was booted off “Countryfile”, she had to fight BBC bosses tooth and nail to prove her unfair dismissal on grounds of age. Only after their defeat in an employment tribunal did they apologise and offer to change. It was BBC management arrogance at its worst. Olenka Frenkiel, an award-winning BBC correspondent and superb broadcaster, had this to say in her article in The Guardian about her treatment as a woman over 50 at the BBC:
“I could see the guys of my age thriving but the women were gone…No more films were being commissioned from me. It was a struggle to get any assignments. HR had no record of me and my managers had omitted to appraise me for three years…I was treated as though I wasn’t there”—
even though she had been working for it for 20 years. Before they are pensioned off, of course, women are often placed in a subordinate role on TV—and not just in the news, where we all know they always sit on the right.
A cause close to my own heart as a gay man is the representation of LGBT people. The creative skillset survey reports that 8% of the television workforce are gay, which is probably a fair representation of the UK population. What is certainly not fair, however, is the on-screen representation. Equity has noted its concern at the scarcity of incidental gay characters in drama—characters whose raison d’?tre is not their gayness. While we all know much-loved gay TV personalities, they are overwhelmingly in light entertainment and comedy, as they were when I was a child. Gay people are seldom seen on screen in serious authoritative roles.
I can speak from personal experience. I came out as gay when I was presenting “BBC Breakfast” on BBC 1, which I did for a number of years. To my astonishment, I found I was the first mainstream TV news presenter to do so. When I told BBC press officers that I had been interviewed by the Daily Mail and asked whether my home life had been honest, they were alarmed rather than supportive. I would go so far as to say that the reaction of some of my bosses was hostile. That was in 2000, and I am not sure that much has changed. In fact, I cannot think of a single BBC 1 news anchor who has been openly gay since. Why does it matter? It matters for many reasons, but not least this: gay kids growing up should be able to dream that they can do anything and play any role in society, not just the stereotypical ones.
One television channel that has been a trailblazer for minorities and women is Channel 4. “Channel 4 News” has a higher proportion, at 14%, of BAME viewers than any other public service broadcaster in the UK. The figure for “BBC 1 News” is a lamentable 5%. In 2014, audiences rated Channel 4 as the best public service broadcaster for representing BAME viewers fairly. Channel 4 scored 30%; BBC 1 got 14%. Channel 4 was rated best for reflecting lesbian and gay people, at 28%. The figure for the BBC was 5%. And for people with disabilities Channel 4 again beat the BBC, by 26% to 9%.
Channel 4’s commitment to diversity stems from its statutory remit to appeal to culturally diverse groups, to offer alternative perspectives and to nurture new talent. This is all underpinned by Channel 4’s unique not-for-profit model. How ironic it is, therefore, that as we debate how to advance diversity at the BBC, the UK Government are putting one of our best and most diverse public service broadcasters at risk through a threatened, albeit sleekitly planned, privatisation.
Let me turn to Scotland. “Channel 4 News” was one of the few news outlets where viewers felt the Scottish independence referendum was covered fairly. Few thought, by contrast, that the BBC covered itself in glory.
So how could it change? I believe that if the BBC is to reflect properly the UK’s diverse nations and regions, it must decentralise and devolve greater financial and editorial control. News is a particularly good example. In recent months, the BBC “News at Six” has deluged Scottish viewers with stories about the English junior doctors strikes and English schools becoming academies. I do not doubt that Scottish viewers watch the coverage and think, “There but for the grace of God”.
Mr MacNeil
This applies in politics as well. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has said, in a pithy and telling line:
“UKIP is a party which gets beamed into Scotland courtesy of the BBC”.
That is all due to a lack of local editorial control in Scotland.
John Nicolson
I entirely take my hon. Friend’s point.
The BBC network news agenda is relentlessly, and often unthinkingly, Anglocentric. The solution, as the BBC now recognises, is a Scottish “News at Six” with national, UK and international stories on the running order, based on news values—a grown-up news programme, rather than the couthie opt-out currently on offer. That is not an especially radical proposal. It already happens on Radio Scotland and the Gaelic medium TV channel BBC Alba.
We on the SNP Benches are unapologetic champions of public service broadcasting. Although we have been trenchant critics of the BBC in recent years, we see it perhaps as a lover who has strayed and whom we want to see return true and honest. Ours is a very different position from many on the Tory Benches, whose hostility towards the BBC speaks more of post-divorce visceral hatred. But the BBC has to change. It has to be more ambitious in the way it reflects its audience. It has to catch up with the needs of post-referendum Scotland. Throughout the UK it has to be less pale and male. It has to join the 21st century in its attitude towards older women and gay people on screen. It has to demonstrate that its fine words of aspiration are translated into action.