employment

Why, 46 years after the Equal Pay Act, are women in television still being paid less than men? “A man at exactly the same grade as me, with far less education and experience, and who joined the BBC after I did, was paid £10,000 more than me,” says one female staffer. 

“I am paid £5,000 less than a man on the same grade, despite having more responsibility and having worked more years on the team,” ­complains another. 

Wednesfield High School was declared the winner at the grand finale of Midlands Centre’s schools challenge, during a ceremony hosted by the BBC at its Birmingham headquarters in June.

Ten schools were represented, and the prize for the winning team, which was awarded by BBC Midlands Today presenter Nick Owen, was a VIP tour of BBC Birmingham.

When Tony Hall was appointed BBC Director-General, he pledged to widen the corporation’s recruitment net by ensuring that 1% of its public-service workforce were apprentices by 2016.

He reached the target two years ahead of schedule. By the end of 2014, 177 apprentices were employed across the UK in departments ranging from local radio to business management.

BBC apprenticeships last between 12 months and three years. Participants on the production scheme undertake placements on programmes in addition to training with the BBC Academy.

Unemployed young people can benefit from the BBC’s new Make It Digital traineeship.

From today, 5,000 opportunities will be available in 60 locations across the UK to enhance young people’s digital and employability skills. 

Unemployed people aged 16 to 24 year olds and who have fewer than two A Levels can register their interest through their local Jobcentre Plus. 

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?".

Without competent researchers, TV would be riddled with half-truths and even outright lies, the butt of viewers’ derision and the recipient of libel lawyers’ writs.

Helpfully, the latest RTS Futures event, "How to be the best... researcher", explained how the job should be done.

"Research is the life blood of the TV industry. Without research, we’d have no Big Brother, Gogglebox or Panorama," argued broadcaster and writer Rick Edwards, who chaired the June event.