BAME

Targets of the campaign include increasing on screen representation of the LGBT community and reserving more internship placements for disabled people.

The aim is to set new standards for the television industry and better reflect the diversity represented in the general British public.

“The BBC has a breadth and scale that is unique in the UK’s media, and that means what we do has real impact," said Director-General, Tony Hall.

Back in the late 1990s, Ade Rawcliffe was working on Ainsley Harriott’s show, Party of a Lifetime. They were in Teesside, filming with children from a housing estate. They all had a question: was Rawcliffe Harriott’s wife or was she his “girlfriend”?

Ade (pronounced Addy) thinks that they were not used to seeing two black people in the same place at once. They might, it occurs to me, have been equally puzzled by the spectacle of two black people working on the same television programme.

The focus on disability coincides with the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and aims to build upon the ongoing initiatives outlined in last year's 360° Diversity Charter which aimed to improve access for all under-represented groups such as BAME, LGBT and women.

In 2017, Channel 4 will focus on a different diversity theme.

Eight months on from the broadcasters announcing new initiatives on diversity, across the industry there’s a sense of a nettle being grasped. On screen, in production offices and in commissioning teams, there are signs of real change. And that’s long before the data is published that will measure it.

All TV industry watchers know that, thanks largely to Lenny Henry, diversity remains high on television’s agenda. In the past year or so, the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky have each made big announcements, pledging to improve their on-screen representation of minorities and to do more to nurture and encourage multi-ethnic and diverse workforces.

But has genuine change finally kicked in? That was the question that Sky News reporter Afua Hirsch wanted answering as she chaired a packed and often emotional RTS event provocatively entitled "Diversity: job done?".

On 18 September 2016, Steve November has a problem. At 9:00pm that night, the slot arrives in ITV’s schedule that would normally be filled by the season premiere of Downton Abbey.

As Director of Drama for the ITV network, November has to find a replacement – Downton is ending, with the last ever episode to air this coming Christmas Day. And, given Downton’s blockbuster ratings performance, it’s going to be a fiendishly difficult act to follow.

The economic arguments for diversity came under the microscope at a lively joint RTS/BBC session held at New Broadcasting House last month. The panellists agreed that, following years of inaction, broadcasters are finally making an effort to boost black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) represen­tation in television.

A year ago two things happened within a few weeks of each other. As the Chair of the RTS Diversity Committee, the two events will forever be linked. The first is a good friend died, the second is the BBC's Director General Tony Hall made a speech about diversity.

Let me start by telling you about the first.