A major survey of the British television industry has found that, contrary to popular belief among “woke” commentators, gay people and ethnic minorities are massively overrepresented.
The Creative Diversity Network (CDN) published its Diamond: The Third Cut report after surveying “over 30,000 diversity forms relating to over 600,000 TV production contributions”.
The CDN found that “BAME [Black and Minority Ethnic] on-screen representation” is a remarkable 23 per cent — far above the BAME share of the British general population, estimated at 14 per cent.
Gay people are also overrepresented on-screen, accounting for 10.7 per cent, 10.5 per cent, 13.1 per cent, an astonishing 18.1 per cent, and 7.6 per cent of on-screen contributions at the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky, respectively, despite making up just 6.4 per cent of the general population.
Gay people were similarly overrepresented off-screen, accounting for 14.7 per cent, 14.1 per cent, 16.1 per cent, 12.5 per cent, and 10.4 per cent of off-screen jobs at the same five broadcasters.
Women also enjoy overrepresentation, accounting for 52.4 per cent of on-screen contributions and 53.7 per cent of off-screen contributions, while actually accounting for just 47 per cent of the working-age population.
Still, the foreword to the report suggests that there is in fact “more work to do” behind the scenes, lamenting that women and minorities “remain absent from many senior creative roles”.
For example, the report laments that “while females dominate contributions in some production roles, such as commissioning editor (64.6 per cent), head of production (85.8 per cent), and in hair and make-up (98 per cent), they are still under-represented in other areas of production, such as camera (17.3 per cent), sound (15.1 per cent) and lighting (3.7 per cent), and in some senior roles, for example writer (38.1 per cent) and director (26.2 per cent).”