Pearson-Shoyama Institute
The Communications and Diversity Network 
(CDN.)

THE BBC: LEADING CULTURAL CHANGE FOR A RICH AND DIVERSE UK

A Speech by BBC Director-General, Greg Dyke at the Race in the Media Awards, organised by the Commission for Racial Equality

7 April 2000

THE BBC: LEADING CULTURAL CHANGE FOR A RICH AND DIVERSE UK

Thank you for inviting me to speak to this awards ceremony today. As you can imagine, since I became Director General of the BBC, I have been swamped with requests and invitations. I never realised just how popular I would become, and if I had taken up all the offers, I would be doing very little else with my time.

However when I was invited here today by Sir Herman Ousley, the former

Chairman of the CRE, I had no hesitation in saying yes. I said yes firstly because early in my career I worked in community relations and I have always been passionate about the subject and, secondly, because I believe the work we did in my time at London Weekend really did make a difference in this industry.

However I mainly said yes because today gives me the second opportunity this week to be able to define the kind of BBC I want to lead.

On Monday I talked to the staff of the BBC about a new structure for the organisation and the aim of creating a new culture. Today I want to talk about the BBC and its role in new Britain - 21st century Britain, a multi-channel, multi-cultural Britain.

I want a BBC where diversity is seen as an asset not an issue or a problem; a BBC which is open to talent from all communities and all cultures; a BBC which reflects the world in which we live today not the world of yesterday. Let me explain.

We live in a fascinating, fast changing world in which the traditional institutions - in both the commercial and public sectors - are struggling to keep up with the enormous pace of change. Change which is driven by a number of factors which we all know well - technological, economic, cultural, societal.

Organisations that were riding high only a few years ago are struggling because they failed to recognise the fundamental changes which are happening in our society. From Marks and Spencer right through to the Metropolitan Police you find institutions which have been slow to react to modern Britain and as a result have had problems.

The BBC is no different. The BBC changed a lot in the '90s, but I would argue that the world has changed much faster and so we have to change more.

The task during my time at the BBC is to make sure that we make public service broadcasting relevant to this new age - that's what my management re-organisation was all about on Monday, that's what the cultural change inside the BBC needs to be about. We need a new vision, and central to that vision is that the BBC must serve Britain's broad and diverse population.

The great danger for any broadcaster is to let your audience get ahead of you in ideas and attitudes. And I believe that in the area of race there is real evidence that one important part of our audience - the young - are already well ahead of us. Many of you will know that better than me.

For young people today British culture is already diverse and heterogeneous, multi-ethnic, multi-everything. For them multi-culturalism is not about political correctness but is simply a part of the furniture of their everyday lives.

As you know all too well, in London and Birmingham it is estimated that within less than 15 years, Afro-Caribbean and Asian people will make up atleast 40% of the youth population. I fear we, the media, don't understand the implications of that.

A comprehensive piece of research on the young, undertaken by the BBC recently summed it up. It said: "Young Britain buzzes with the energy of multiculturalism. Yet most broadcast media does not reflect young multiculturalism."

The BBC of course should have a special role at the forefront of this change. Why?

Well, firstly because in the words of Chris Smith the BBC is "the UK's most important cultural institution" although I doubt if that is currently true for many in the younger age groups. If we are to live up to that role we must change and learn to reflect the true cultural richness of the whole UK in the first decade of the 21st century.

We must extend the range, reach and appeal of our services above and beyond what we already know and do. If we don't we will share the predicament faced by the many other great and previously unassailable institutions.

This is not only one of the BBC's greatest creative challenges - but I also believe one of our greatest creative opportunities: to be a part of and to help shape the unfolding energy and excitement of new British culture.

Many of you here today are already there - we need to join you.

The second reason why we have a responsibility to lead in this area is that we are the British Broadcasting Corporation. Our role is therefore to explore and articulate the meaning of Britishness in a multi-cultural devolving Britain.

And finally, the BBC has another reason for wanting to lead in this area - a moral duty almost. Every household pays our wages and funds our programmes through the privilege of the Licence Fee, and because of this we are charged with providing programmes and services for everyone and we are publicly accountable for doing so.

In the past the BBC has recognised its unique responsibility in this area and adapted its organisation to reflect changes in society. Once we were the chosen career path for the public school, Oxbridge educated "chap", alongside the Church, the armed services or the civil service perhaps. But the BBC moved on from that a decade or so ago - which is just as well for me.

Incidentally, if you do apply to work at the BBC and don't get the job, don't give up. I first applied for a job in the BBC in 1969 and was turned down as a reporter on Radio Teeside. I didn't apply again for 30 years and the second time round I was more successful.

I believe that in terms of employment, the BBC has, in recent years, made genuine and well-intentioned efforts to respond to multi-cultural Britain by opening up the organisation to talented people from ethnic minorities.

There are some signs of progress: the BBC has met its own target of 8% of staff from ethnic minorities by the year 2000. This matches what is widely accepted in the private and public sector as fair representation. But this only tells part of the story.

On arriving at the BBC my first decision was to spend a lot of time in the first three months wandering around the place. Whereas a decade ago if I had wandered around the BBC I suspect I would have found it disproportionately male and white today it just seems disproportionately white. If we have made real progress on gender we can do it with race.

Although we have met the 8% target for all our staff; in management roles that figure comes down to less than 2%. The top of the BBC is very white.

I suspect that many creative people from ethnic minorities still prefer to go to work for independents or other channels rather than the BBC. And our employment statistics show that those who have worked for and left tend not to return. Stories are legion of the BBC's glass ceiling and obstructive bureaucratic practices but I'm not convinced that that is the biggest problem. If it is then it would be relatively easy to change.

Remember this is an organisation that under John Birt's leadership really tried because John was really committed, and I mean really committed to this cause. It was John who drove through so much pioneering work in this area at LWT 20 years ago. It was John who created the 8% target at the BBC. No, my concern is that it's more about the culture of the organisation - a culture that many from ethnic minorities do not find inviting, attractive or relevant. A culture that has still to recognise and fully understand multi-cultural Britain. A culture that is still rooted in another, earlier Britain.

Everyone in the BBC must own the need for change and squeeze out indifference or obstruction, ease in openness and accessibly - and make the BBC a welcoming home for people of varied cultures and backgrounds.

Last month we appointed Linda Mitchell as Head of Diversity, reporting for the first time directly to the BBC Executive. I want her to help us achieve a new target for the BBC overall: 10% by 2003 and to at least double the number of managers from diverse backgrounds in the same time.

We must recognise diversity as a central business objective - not just an HR component. It must be as much a part of core managerial accountability and competence as financial responsibility and creative leadership. And performance in this area will be judged through appraisal targets which will be linked to financial bonuses to mark real achievements.

This will apply to me, to my senior colleagues and to managers throughout the organisation.

Employment and recruitment policies are important but are only one part of the equation. In the media we also need to be vigilant about how we represent and portray our diverse society on air.

And as with employment, the verdict on the BBC's record on portrayal is "not bad but could do better". Recent research across all our output showed that although overall the proportion of ethnic minorities shown on screen is a fair reflection of society as a whole, there is some evidence of stereotyping.

In factual areas, for example, ethnic minority programme participants were most likely to be employed in or talking about sport. And in fictional programming, ethnic minorities were more likely to be portrayed as unemployed than white people.

We still too often portray ethnic minorities as problem centred - bugged by crime, bad housing, poor schooling, poverty. And on and on it goes. We rarely rate the high performers, the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the risk takers, the campaigners. We need a new model that reflects today's world - that sees the valued contribution of all peoples to shaping today's Britain.

Of course employment policy is important in these areas too. Diversity needs to be represented in the critical editorial areas of the organisation if we are to see real change.

However, there are some signs of progress in portrayal. Contrary to what you might expect, people from ethnic minority groups were no more likely to be protagonists in violence than others in our programmes.

But this is just a start and if we are to move forward we must embrace diversity not because it's special, quite the opposite, but because it is part of everyday life for millions and millions of our viewers and listeners. It just is.

Getting this right, reflecting in all our services the richness and diversity which is the reality of urban and young Britain today, will be a benchmark for my time at the BBC.

Not because we are told to, or because we ought to, or even because we want to - and I genuinely do want to - but because in the end, if we don't we will fail to reflect the society in which we live and as a result we will increasingly become irrelevant and ignored.

And, in my view, there is no more damning charge a broadcaster can face, particularly at a time when the world is changing so rapidly around us, than that of being irrelevant.

I believe we must change and embrace multi-culturalism - because this is Britain in the 21st century, and 21st Century Britain is diverse.

Thank you.