BBC warned against ‘tick-box’ diversity and ‘preachy’ storylines in review

The BBC has been warned that its approach to diversity can come across as “clunky” and “preachy” in a review of how the corporation tackles representation.

Ordered by the BBC’s board and carried out by former Bafta chair Anne Morrison and independent media consultant Chris Banatval, the report looks at the ways in which diverse communities are portrayed in BBC content.

One topic widely discussed in the report was on-screen diversity in both factual and fictional entertainment. The report suggests that most complaints about diversity are made when it is deemed “inauthentic” and that it is being done “to meet a target or tick a box”.

“Often when something appears clunky it is because it’s not a successful programme creatively and the diversity seems superimposed rather than arising out of the subject matter,” the report says, using a hypothetical example of a Christmas time Agatha Christie murder mystery integrating discussion of “anti-colonial struggles”.

“Unless it’s very skilfully done, there is a danger it will feel overly didactic and preachy, as if the viewer is being lectured or a point is being made heavy-handedly,” the report reads.

The report then turns to colour-conscious and colour-blind casting, suggesting that some respondents struggled when seeing actors of colour playing characters “divorced from their own communities”. This, they said, suggests that the character may have been written for a white actor and then cast “colour-blind” without adapting the role.

Historical dramas can naturally be a point of complaint, with the casting of It’s a Sin star Nathaniel Curtis playing Sir Isaac Newton in Doctor Who being used as an example.

However, the report points out, “without colour-blind casting, the range of roles available to actors of colour would be severely restricted”.

“Productions should consider their choices carefully when it comes to colour-blind casting. In depicting an anachronistic historical world in which people of colour are able to rise to the top of society as scientists, artists, courtiers and Lords of the Realm, there may be the unintended consequence of erasing the past exclusion and oppression of ethnic minorities and breeding complacency about their former opportunities,” the report reads.

“What needs to be avoided is ethnic diversity which looks forced and tick-box, and we found our interviewees of colour as emphatic on this point as those who were white.”

Another issue raised in the report concerned the prevalence of older female presenters on screen, where it was suggested that there was a “notable mismatch” in the number of presenters over the age of 60.

The review found that BBC’s content division features nearly four times as many older male presenters as female, while there are nearly twice as many older men than women presenting on BBC News.

Generally, the report found that the BBC had improved in portraying British communities in an inclusive and authentic manner in recent years. While race, disability and female representation are usually focused on, the report said that geography and class were given less attention, which the BBC committed to improving upon.