Tag: disabled onscreen talent

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Creative Diversity Network Fourth Cut Diamond Report

The Creative Diversity Network (CDN) published their Fourth Cut report earlier this year. Whilst this blog sets out to give a quick snapshot of the report, I would encourage you to set aside an hour (with a cuppa) to fully invest your attention in reading this report from start to finish, and truly take in these sobering stats.

Diamond is a tool not a solution

Creative Diversity Network, 2021

If you’re an influencer or key decision maker in the industry – particularly at an indie – you can use this report to help inform your recruitment strategy and set achievable targets – not just to meet a ‘quota’ but to really consider the likelihood of green-lit commissions going ahead, where you will advertise your roles for each commission and how diverse the talent pool will be in each of the places you publicise a role. You can find support from the bigger broadcasters to help you crew up a production – Channel 4 are going to great lengths to help with the creation of their regional hubs in Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow and ITV’s Creative Diversity Partner has spoken at a recent ScreenSkills event (which I will blog about separately) to openly offer support – even if you’re not working on an ITV production. Bristol based, Gritty Talent are working towards launching an app this Spring where you can search for diverse talent in one place. Find out more here.

Report Headlines

This is the fourth year of data collection from 36,000 diversity forms completed from 74,000 TV productions. The data spans the period from 1st August 2019 to 31st July 2020. This is the largest annual sample to date.

Contributions made by disabled people and those over 50 on and off screen

CDN stated last year that these two groups were ones that needed attention, in terms of increasing their representation in the industry.

Whilst there have been encouraging increases in the contributions made by disabled people, this group is still under represented with only 5.8% working off screen, which is well below the national workforce estimate of 17%. Disabled people made only 8.2% of on-screen contributions, despite comprising of 18% of the population.

For the over 50’s, off screen contributions were at 21.5%, where the national workforce estimate is 31% and 25.5% on screen against 36% of the UK population.

Contributions made by ethnically diverse people on and off screen

It is disappointing to see that off screen stats have fallen from 12.3% last year (2018-2019) to 11.8%, which is below the national workforce estimate of 13%. This reflects the findings of the Race and Ethnic Diversity Deep Dive Diamond report (published by the CDN last October. I wrote about this report in a previous blog post) where they stated that South Asian representation continues to be low, with on-screen contributions having declined every year for the last four years. This prompted me to consider what the representation numbers are for East Asians and as I continued to read the report, CDN had of course outlined the stats for this group too which is comparably lower to any other ethnic group:

It’s not clear how much Covid has had a negative impact on these stats. There was a rise of unemployed freelancers when productions were cancelled back in April 2020. It is likely that Covid played a part in the decrease of the number of diverse freelancers working on productions once they resumed. I am aware that some freelancers had taken up PAYE work in other sectors to maintain an income.

Drama

Drama saw the fewest off screen contributions made by disabled and ethnically diverse people. Contributions were at just 2.7% from disabled people – down from 4.7% last year. And 5.9% from ethnically diverse people, compared to 8.6% in the previous year.

Senior Roles

Women, transgender, ethnically diverse and disabled people continue to be less well represented in senior roles.

The number of women working in senior roles fell from 50.4% last year to 47.1% this year. Women are particularly poorly represented in the role of Directors at 29% and as Writers where there was a fall from 38.1% last year to 33.4% this year.

When it came to ethnically diverse and disabled people, their contributions were as follows:

  • Disabled Writer contributions at 3.5%
  • Disabled Director contributions at 4.9%
  • Ethnically Diverse Writer contributions at 6.5%
  • Ethnically Diverse Director contributions at 8.4%

This table outlined where each senior role reflects the UK workforce and the level of action required to increase representation:

Craft and Tech Roles

Unsurprisingly, these roles are highly gendered with more women working in Hair and Make Up and more men working in Lighting, Camera and Sound:

What next?

Doubling Disability

CDN are taking a collaborative approach to improve the representation of disabled people by partnering with Diamond Broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, Channel 5/Viacom CBS and now UKTV) and other CDN members. The aim of the Doubling Disability project is to double the percentage of disabled people working off screen to 9%. The project will be extended to the end of 2021 given the impacts of the global pandemic. Despite the extension, CDN has stated that additional efforts will be required to meet this target. An interim report outlining progress will be published later this Spring.

Everyday Diversity Project

This is led by the University of Glasgow and in partnerships with CDN and the British Film Institute. It is based on extensive academic research, which is being used to inform the creation of practical tools for the screen industries.

More focused reporting

Following the positive response to CDN’s ‘deep-dive’ report into racial and ethnic diversity last October, there is a demand for more detailed reporting. CDN will look to publish a further subject-focused report in 2021. I imagine this will be around October time again.

My summary

I think the work CDN do is incredibly invaluable. I’m looking forward to reading more reports from them because I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to stats and figures 🤓 😅 and more importantly, the work they’re doing to provide such useful reporting can help to build lasting tangible change 🙌🏼💪🏼👍🏼

To read The Fourth Cut report in full click here.

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Reframing Disability

Last week the BBC hosted an event called ‘Reframing Disability’ in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act. It seems as though there has been a real step change at the BBC since the appointment of June Sarpong as Director of Creative Diversity, in terms of it’s commitment to becoming more diverse, equal and inclusive. Like with many of the broadcasters there’s still a long way to go, but their recent activity has been really encouraging to see.

One of the Spotlight Sessions – CripTales: Mat Fraser in conversation with Alex Brooker was a brilliant watch. Mat was such a fantastic speaker and his energy shone through online – as it would do since he is an actor. CripTales is a BBC Four series where a life-changing moment is captured in six powerful, dramatic monologues. All of these are written, directed and performed by disabled people and curated by Mat Fraser.

Talking of his experience curating this series, Mat referred to working exclusively with disabled people as being, “very rare, weird, momentous and joyous.” He went on to say: “I had to pinch myself sometimes because it was a career dream of mine.” It was heart-warming to hear this. However, Mat quite rightly pointed out that back in 2009 he was part of an all disabled cast in Channel 4’s Cast Offs and that it had taken 11 years for something like this to happen again. He went on to say that the transmission slot for Cast Offs wasn’t great as it was broadcast around the same period as popular comedy drama Skins and at different timeslots each week – not ideal as viewers prefer regularity when it comes to tuning in to their favourite shows. Mat was at pains to say that he wasn’t criticising the broadcaster’s decision on TX slots.

It was a thought provoking session. They also discussed the roles that disabled actors are given in programmes where the focus is on their disability and that is a shame, with the host Alex stating that “Our disability is just one aspect of us. We do regular stuff as well.”

That theme continued in a panel discussion called Representation Matters. Adam Pearson – a presenter and actor – asked a question that he went on to answer himself: “How do we get disabled people on TV doing incidental non disabled things? You hire disabled people to do incidental non disabled things.” So simple. Adam also made a very good point around the fact that: “There are no disabled people with positions of influence in the media industry at an executive level,” and with that “…there is a cycle of bad representation of disabled people year after year.”

When it comes to disability, another panellist – Katie Piper – said from her perspective it was important to “…allow people to develop their own understanding , empathy and knowledge via podcasts, books etc.,” and encouraged individuals to take responsibility in seeking out information for themselves, rather than being spoon fed. I agree with this, although the reality is that the majority of ‘time poor’ people will only invest their free time into matters that interest or affect them directly.

I think education plays an important part. Schools should invest more in teaching children the importance of diversity, equality and inclusion and about cultural history on a global, as well as a national level. I have heard from parents with children of primary school age that this seems to be happening more recently because of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I hope in years to come we live in a society that embraces each other’s differences where diversity, equality and inclusivity is as natural as breathing air.

The BBC’s Reframing Disability events are available to watch on demand HERE. If you work in the media and entertainment industry (or even if you don’t) these are well worth your time.

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