大象传媒

大象传媒 Content

It鈥檚 critical that the stories we tell, the characters we develop and the contributors we give a platform to, reflect our audiences and the society we live in. So I want to say a huge 鈥渢hank you鈥� to all Content teams who have committed to improving our representation of gender, ethnicity and disability through 50:50 The Equality Project. With more than 250 teams across TV, Radio & Music, Children鈥檚 & Education and Sport signed up, and 140 of those monitoring beyond gender, I鈥檓 excited to see what further progress we can make in the coming year.

Better representation needs to be a priority for all media organisations, so it鈥檚 encouraging to see the success of 50:50 outside the 大象传媒. Alongside our 拢112m diversity fund and 20% production workforce targets, 50:50 is helping us make a positive and lasting impact on diversity across the whole broadcast industry.

When I joined 大象传媒 Sport in the early 1980s, our coverage looked very different. It鈥檚 no longer unusual for us to lead our programming with a women鈥檚 sports story, and we make a conscious effort to normalise women鈥檚 sport through our selection of stories, imagery, presenters and pundits.

大象传媒 Sport committed to monitoring our gender balance at the end of 2019. Although Covid slowed our progress, I鈥檓 proud of our results for the 50:50 Challenge. More than half our teams (53%) featured at least 50% women in their content, up from 33% when we started.

We鈥檝e also expanded our monitoring to record the representation of women, disabled contributors and those from ethnic minority backgrounds across 18 flagship programmes and sporting events. And as the sporting and broadcasting worlds return to normal after the pandemic, we will work to embed 50:50 in the daily working practices of all 大象传媒 Sport teams.

We鈥檙e not yet where we need to be in terms of women鈥檚 representation across Sport, but 50:50 has given us a way of recording and tracking our progress so that we can hold ourselves accountable, and to recognise how far we鈥檝e come.

I鈥檓 thrilled that we鈥檝e been joined by colleagues from 大象传媒 Scotland Sport, 大象传媒 Wales Sport, and 大象传媒 Sport Africa in striving for equal representation. Our ambition this year is to work more closely with other broadcasters, sporting bodies and organisations to help us get there.

It takes time to develop reporters, presenters, commentators and pundits 鈥� both men and women 鈥� but inequalities remain, and it鈥檚 only together that we can achieve a level playing field.

When Newsround became the first children鈥檚 programme to join 50:50 in 2018, it seemed apt. Newsround from its very early stages was a trailblazer for representation, from Lucy Mathen becoming the 大象传媒鈥檚 first Asian woman reporter, to its tackling of playground racism and other issues relevant to children from a wide variety of backgrounds. At the core of 50:50 is a fundamental question for Newsround 鈥� if children in the UK cannot see themselves reflected in their news service, then where will they?

It鈥檚 fair to say that a commitment to representation is well engrained within the teams working on Newsround, but participation in 50:50 gives us an opportunity to measure how well we are matching up to our aims, and to challenge our assumptions. The introduction of ethnicity and disability to the scheme has shown things we need to keep doing and where we could be doing more. It鈥檚 one tool, but an invaluable one for us.

50:50 is a brilliant incentive. It鈥檚 been invigorating to change our approach to programming for the group, and for us to push the 50:50 message. Last March, we decided that we would make sure our annual programme was always made up of music by 50% female composers. And we鈥檝e achieved that.

From my conversations about repertoire and ideas with people from choirs in the UK and abroad, I鈥檓 confident we鈥檙e the only full-time professional choir in the world to have made this commitment and to be performing as much music by female composers. It鈥檚 so refreshing, both within the 大象传媒 and to the outside cultural world. We are working hard to get more women conductors in front of the Singers, and we鈥檙e proud of where we are on the journey.

Nations & Regions

Nations has long set a high standard for gender representation through 50:50, and 66% of teams reaching 50% women in this year鈥檚 Challenge month is an achievement we should all be proud of.

I鈥檓 particularly delighted that Nations has been leading the way in disability and ethnicity monitoring too and I want to thank those colleagues who have put so much careful thought and effort into how we take this further. Serving and representing our audiences is at the heart of everything we do, and we will continue to make this monitoring a key priority for everyone.

Monitoring matters. At 大象传媒 Radio Devon, we鈥檝e used it to benchmark how effectively we鈥檙e connecting with our communities. Every day and in every programme, we try to ensure our contributors are genuinely representative of our demographic and the local people we serve. That鈥檚 meant learning and listening, reaching out and welcoming in.

As a station, we have now doubled the number of contributors from ethnically diverse backgrounds. It has taken over a year, and there鈥檚 more to do of course, but we are making progress. That matters to us 鈥� and particularly here, in a rural area where people may feel much more visible and often more isolated. Their voices matter and we鈥檙e working to ensure that everyone in our community hears them.

We began measuring ethnicity and disability for the first time on Radio Wales in November, and made the decision early on that we would monitor through actual data: we wanted the highest possible accuracy. This was especially important for us because so many of our on-air contributors are callers, real members of our audience, and monitoring their characteristics through perception would have been impossible.

There was some concern about how engaged our contributors might be when asked diversity questions over the phone; but in fact, very few people objected to being asked a little more about themselves, or mind hearing the message that whoever they are, they matter. And the results of gathering actual data have been invaluable: we鈥檝e learned so much about ourselves and about our audience, and discovered that we鈥檙e already in some ways a more diverse group than we might have realised.

Crucially, we鈥檝e also highlighted areas where we need to do more work, in particular when it comes to ensuring we represent disability. As a result of the approach we鈥檝e taken, we now have real concrete data that helps us focus our efforts and gives us a robust position from which to build.鈥�

News & Current Affairs

大象传媒 News delivers impartial and truthful accounts of global events to audiences around the world, reaching more than 450m people each week across all our services. It is therefore imperative that we reflect that world fairly and accurately in our storytelling.

Through 50:50, our teams across the UK and all international services have continued to strive for gender-balanced content during extraordinary times. As we emerged from the second year of a global pandemic, with an uptick in covid cases leaving a number of teams under resourced, and the recent invasion of Ukraine dominating our coverage and our thoughts for much of March 2022, I鈥檓 incredibly pleased that 68% of the News teams able to file reached 50% women contributors in Challenge month 鈥� exceeding the project average.

It鈥檚 also an immense source of pride that 50:50 began in News, and has since been adopted across the industry. We鈥檙e now focusing on improving the representation of disability in our content, and the News at Six pilot to monitor socio-economic diversity is continuing our tradition of innovating and driving change to help the 大象传媒 better reflect all our audiences.

In 2019, 50:50 launched a pilot within World Service languages. The aim was to seek out diverse contributors so as to widen our database, adding hundreds of new voices to our programmes.

Since then 50:50 has become part and parcel of the production workflow for our teams, working hand in hand with other strands of our diversity and inclusion work. Today, 124 teams from every part of our international services 鈥� including Media Action, 大象传媒 Monitoring and all language services 鈥� are part of the project.

But the past year hasn鈥檛 been without its challenges. Events in Afghanistan and Ukraine made it more difficult for stretched teams to put as much effort into having a wide range of guests. Yet the 50:50 and editorial teams have continued to work together to make sure they are on their way to achieving the balance we want to see reflected in our output 鈥� a wider variety of voices on air which improves our programmes and helps us better reflect our audiences.

For me, the 50:50 Project is something beyond gender. Diversifying our contributors is something that enables us to improve our storytelling. If our storytelling is improved, it connects us with our audiences in a more meaningful way, which helps us to reach more audiences in an equitable manner.

I am so proud that most of our teams not only reached the goal of 50% women in our content, but also sustained it. They succeeded in introducing to our audiences a wider range of excellent expertise in politics, economics, sports and many other topics. Gender balance in our output is not only an objective for the 50:50 Project, but also a more complete way of telling the story and reaching more underserved audiences.