BBC: ‘Era of TV With White Men Imparting Knowledge is Over’

Sir David Attenborough shares a laugh with zookeepers during a photo opportunity at Tarong
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Virginia Hale

The era of TV shows in which white males impart information on a subject is dead, a top BBC executive has said, stating the corporation must find “different ways” of bringing expert insight and knowledge to audiences in future.

BBC Four editor Cassian Harrison, an upper middle-class white male, told the Edinburgh Television Festival that people are no longer interested in “static” television programmes featuring a white male presenter talking about a topic, The Times reports.

“There’s a mode of programming that involves a presenter, usually white, middle-aged and male, standing on a hill and ‘telling you like it is’. We all recognise the era of that has passed.

“What we’re looking for is different ways to shift a form. Different ways we can bring that specialism, that information, that insight to audiences,” he said, adding that the bosses of other BBC channels had also decided that the format was outdated.

Earlier this year the former head of BBC Comedy, Shane Allen, said a production like Monty Python with a cast of “six Oxbridge white blokes” would not be commissioned today, explaining that the corporation is instead intent on hiring people “who reflect the modern world”.

Speaking after a number of comedy programmes fronted by women and ethnic minorities were unveiled, Allen pointed to the relatively unknown recent BBC 3 sketch show Famalam, the whole cast of which is black, to highlight the corporation’s “diverse” new content.

Breitbart London has previously reported how the corporation offers highly desirable paid staff ‘internships’ which white people cannot apply for, claiming that the drive for ever-greater ‘diversity’ is to ensure the BBC’s workforce “reflects the UK”.

However, figures from last month revealed the public broadcaster employs more than 400 individuals who identify as transgender — a figure four times higher than the general population — and that the proportion of lesbian, gay, and bisexual staff members at the BBC was almost five times that of the country at large.

Neglecting to comment on the underrepresentation of heterosexuals in the corporation’s workforce, BBC diversity chief Tunde Ogungbesan instead insisted that more lesbians needed to be hired.

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