Directors UK: BAME research

At a recent meeting of Directors UK’s multi-camera entertainment committee, members set each other a challenge: name a BAME director working in their field. Not one name came up.

This was no collective amnesia: according to the organisation’s Adjusting the Colour Balance report, in 2013, the year when Lenny Henry issued his rallying cry to improve diversity, not a single chat show, gameshow, panel show, reality show or performance-based entertainment show was helmed by a BAME director.

Just seven out of all 20,376 episodes of multi-camera and entertainment shows – more than a third of all the episodes Directors UK studied – had a BAME director (0.15% of shiny floor shows and 0.52% of studio/magazine shows).

The organisation paints a “critical and urgent” picture of this genre, but it is far from alone: no period dramas or sketch shows, and just one episode of any comedy, had a non-white director in 2013. Only 1.77% of episodes of children’s shows, a typical entry point for directors and one seen as relatively easy to get into, had a non-white director – and these were all factual or drama programmes; again, comedy, entertainment and gameshows had none.

Glimmer of hope
“Children’s is a microcosm of the big picture because it shows the same problems in all genres,” says Directors UK head of campaigning Ali Bailey.

It offers the same glimmers of hope too: factual (5.4% BAME-directed) leads the way in children’s. Factual is one of the more consistent genres in general, with popular factual the most diverse, with 4.7% BAME directors.

But even here, Directors UK notes that BAME directors have been “shut out of some of the most eminent directing jobs in factual television”: they made less than 1% of specialist factual and single documentaries – and no rig shows at all.

Continuing drama, which is seen as a foot on the ladder for many directors, shocked the researchers too: only 322 out of 15,435 episodes (2.1%) had a BAME director. Coronation Street was the worst offender with 0.03%; Casualty was the best with 6.7%. The BBC in general emerged best in this field, holding the top four slots.

The overall talent pool of non-white directors was smaller than anyone at Directors UK anticipated. The shocking statistics point not just to problems at entry points to the industry, nor to mid-career training, but to the entire career path. Fewer breaks on main- stream shows means fewer role models for young people to aspire to. And fewer programmes willing to give them the chance to cut their teeth makes it harder for them to take that first step, which in turn discourages students from pursuing a career in directing TV.

The directors interviewed for the survey felt at a disadvantage from the outset. Some said they were marginalised by risk-averse commissioners sticking with trusted directors; some by ending up on programmes defined by their ethnicity; and some by being on productions on which they were the only non-white person. A quarter of interviewees said they had been in a situation in which they had to correct assumptions that they were a taxi driver, trainee or cast member.

Shadowing schemes, though well-intentioned, have their problems. Many offered anecdotes about broadcasters using such initiatives to avoid more directing work going to lesser-known BAME directors. One experienced director described moving from directing many episodes of one continuing drama to an unpaid place on another.

Career support
For Directors UK, Channel 4’s emerging drama talent strand Coming Up, produced by Touchpaper Television, offers the most tangible template of how to support BAME directors at a crucial point in their career.

The series single-handedly propped up the single drama category and of the 12 BAME directors who had helmed episodes in the period studied, four went on to direct TV drama, three made feature films and two returned to short films. Only three have not had further director credits to date.

DUK’s Bailey laments the dwindling of this strand, which now funnels its budget into one feature-length drama rather than offering seven directors a 30-minute piece, and the broader ‘mid-tier’ of multi-director shows such as Skins and Misfits, which gave opportunities to a diverse range of young film-makers.

Underlying the doom and gloom is a feeling that despite diversity being a hot topic, the industry was more progressive when the Independent Television Commission monitored broadcasters more closely. Plus some directors alluded to earlier efforts from Pebble Mill and the BBC’s Asian Production Unit in the 1980s and 1990s.

For Directors UK diversity chair Menhaj Huda, who got his break via Channel 4 in the 1990s and went on to direct Queer As Folk and the movie Kidulthood, the cultural impact of 9/11 derailed the progress being made. “Suddenly people stopped being as excited by diverse talent and it took a couple of years to realise that projects had been cancelled and most of the Asians you saw on-screen were cast as terrorists,” he says. Things have started to change on screen, but Huda is not convinced this will be reflected off screen any time soon. One director interviewed said: “If you’re a black or Asian director, you have to be brilliant. You have to go above and beyond the norm.”

Huda recognises the sentiment. “No one’s focusing on the next generation of TV people coming through,” he says. “The only path people see are the anomalies, like Steve McQueen winning an Oscar. It’s not just about finding the outstanding voices, but about the people who should be working. There’s plenty of mediocre people working in TV in normal jobs – there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be BAME too.”