diversity

It may be Carolyn McCall’s first RTS Cambridge but she knows what she wants from the convention’s speakers. They should be positive and provocative. She also wants to hear from the voices of the people who consume the content.

“There is no point going into the Cambridge Convention with an attitude of ‘It’s all doom and gloom’. Yes, there are challenges but the opportunities for content creators have never been greater,” she emphasises.

Home Free (w/t) follows a group of young people with learning disabilities as they leave home and move into supported living apartments.

Living independently for the first the time, the new housemates will take a major leap in their lives with extraordinary access from the families.

The observational documentary promises joy, laughter, new friendships, blossoming relationships and even tears and heartache.

The new initiative is part of the commitment made by channel 5 to create mainstream programmes that accurately reflect contemporary Britain.

The TV Collective was founded ten years ago by Simone Pennant and promotes the commercial and creative value that having diversity can bring to British film and TV studios.

Channel 5 are looking for nine small or medium size BAME companies, primarily based in the regions, who are owned and managed by BAME talent.

The first event – “The network speaks: beyond tokenism” – took place in Cardiff in early June to a full house of programme-makers from Wales’ unscripted production community, who took part in an in-depth conversation about diversity and representation on-screen.

The series of discussions aims to take the conversation about disability out of London and change how the industry works for everyone. It will focus on local issues and solutions, generated through intimate, accessible and open discussions.

Areas for consideration include casting diverse contributors (with a particular focus on disabled and BAME contributors), appropriate use of language and reflecting the whole of Wales.

This is an opportunity for everyone to share their own experiences and open up the discussion on the challenges and choices around representation.

The free-of-charge event will be held at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on June 6th.

Four part series A Very British History will tell the stories of various communities around Britain, including the Jewish community in Leeds, Afro-Caribbeans in Birmingham, Ugandan Asians in Leicester and Romany Gypsies in the home counties.

Photojournalist Don McCullin will travel the country, capturing its diversity in Don McCullin: Looking for England. After sixty years as a photographer, 83 year-old McCullin will visit communities around the UK, from inner cities to seaside towns, and lets TV cameras inside his darkroom for the first time.  

The Panic! Report, which compiles survey data along with interviews, gives an overview of equality and social mobility in the arts.

It states, “Particularly worrying is the fact that those people who are in the best position to effect change are the very people who most strongly support the meritocratic explanation.”

The report indicated that in the TV, film and radio sectors, only 12.4% of the workforce were considered working class – compared to a national figure of around a third of the population.

The debate over women working in television has come a long way since 1986 when Coronation Street was an all-male cabal. In those days, all the female characters were written by men. Yet, as recently as 2015, when Red Productions unveiled the latest run of ITV’s trail-blazing cop show Scott and Bailey, the response of male journalists could be relentlessly sexist, revealed actor Lesley Sharp.

That was the conclusion of an engaging RTS debate, Is Older the New Younger?, which heard from an all-female panel chaired by Channel 4 News’s Social Affairs Editor, Jackie Long.

Screenwriter Key Mellor said that with people like Charlotte Moore at the BBC (director of content) and Polly Hill at ITV (head of drama) occupying powerful jobs TV was less dominated by men that it once was.  

The three-day Convention featured keynotes from James Murdoch, Ofcom chief Sharon White and the Secretary of State Karen Bradley MP, as well as some lively panel discussions.

Watch highlights from the event below, or scroll down to watch the sessions in full. You can read more about this year's RTS Cambridge in the October issue of Television magazine.