A new report has revealed that the amount of diversity on British TV screens decreased last year, despite the global awakening that led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd.
The Creative Diversity Network's latest Diamond report provided a stark look on the television industry's diversity figures, based on the 36,503 responses of industry figures between August 2019 and July 2020.
The report discovered that Black, Asian, and minority ethnic people representation had decreased, both on-screen and behind-the-scenes in the industry. 11.8% of people working in the industry were Black, Asian or minority ethnic last year, down from 12.3% in 2019—which is below the UK workforce estimate of 13%.
Despite shows like Michaela Coel's brilliant BBC/HBO series I May Destroy You having a profound cultural impact, it did not do enough to shift the dial when it comes to diversify representation in 2020. Contributions made by people from diverse backgrounds fell from 22.7% in 2019 to 21.2% last year, even though there were vocal commitments from all the UK's major broadcasting networks around improving diversity in light of the events of the year.
The CDN report also states that the UK television industry has "urgent" work to do when it comes to disability representation, with disabled people only making 5.8% of contributions off-screen and 8.2% on-screen, compared to a 17% national average.
You can read the full report here.
