Lenny Henry calls for law to boost low numbers of black people in TV industry

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/18/lenny-henry-black-asian-television

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The actor and comedian Lenny Henry has called for new legislation to reverse the "appalling" percentage of black and Asian people in the creative industries.

Henry said the situation has "deteriorated badly" with the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people working in the UK television industry falling by 30.9% between 2006 and 2012.

They now make up just 5.4% of the broadcasting workforce, which Henry described as an "appalling percentage".

Delivering the annual Bafta television lecture in London, Henry said he was speaking on behalf of the 2,000 BAME people have left the industry over the last three years while the industry overall has grown by over 4,000.

And he said even star actors such as David Harewood are still "frustrated by the lack of opportunities in the UK" and "very disappointed offers are still not coming in".

Henry contrasted pictures of the casts of US and UK dramas such as Gray's Anatomy and the mostly white Channel 4 series Southcliffe and ITV's Broadchurch, saying you "rarely see a black face" in high-end British dramas and comedies such as ITV's Downton Abbey.

He is putting a proposal to BBC director general Tony Hall on Tuesday and to the regulator Ofcom intended to encourage more productions to use BAME actors and production staff.

Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, he said he had a "screen dream" that he said, "would need some kind of legislation".

Henry's plan involves ringfencing money for BAME shows and setting targets adapted from the BBC's model that it has used to increase the number of programmes from the nations and regions by 400%.

He has proposed three criteria that could be used to define a BAME production and says two out of the three would have to be satisfied for a show to qualify.

The criteria include 50% of production staff on a project must be BAME and 50% of onscreen talent must be BAME; and the production company controllers and/or the managing executives and/or senior personnel must be 30% BAME.

Henry's proposal also says, "commissioners should be appointed to actively seek out and commission from BAME productions."

Henry said culture minister Ed Vaizey is "very keen" to "put pressure on broadcasters and producers, "so it has teeth".

He said: "We do need to smash through the glass ceiling … it's the boardroom too."

"Since 2008, I have noticed another worrying trend. Our most talented BAME actors are increasingly frustrated and they have to go to America to succeed."

He said they have often told they do not have the "marquee power" but argued that this is no longer the case.

Henry pointed out that in BBC1's Luther, which stars Idris Elba, Elba's character John Luther "has no black friends … you never see Luther with black people, what's going on?"

He said it was an issue for the "entire industry" to "reflect society" but did highlight the BBC's charter which he argued pledges to reflect not only the nations and regions but also "communities … what about communities, more precisely BAME communities?"

There have been attempts in the past to try and resolve the issue through mentoring and training schemes but Henry said it is not enough and now targets are needed and monitoring figures on ethnicity will help with "shaming" the industry.

However he said he was optimistic that people "want to talk" about his proposals and he hoped for "radical change".

Henry's comments follow a call he made in January at a diversity forum chaired by Vaizey for broadcasters to employ more black and Asian people.