Have you ever watched a TV drama based firmly in one corner of the UK and wondered whether it truly represents the people and lives of that community?

As BBC Chair, I have visited BBC productions on location from Stornoway to Cornwall. It’s been the best part of the job. And when it comes to portrayal and representation – both on and off screen – what I have seen is a far cry from what it was like when I was first involved in making programmes.

Yet a nagging thought still plays on my mind: how well does the BBC accurately reflect the people of this country in all their variety – in cultures, classes, communities and the wide range of attitudes and values now present up and down the UK?

Last week the BBC published the findings of an independent review that was commissioned by the Board to address that very question, alongside our plans to rise to the challenge it presents.

It kicked off a healthy debate in the media. And it’s a debate that we welcome because these findings matter. Licence fee payers should feel the BBC is speaking to them and about them. As a universal public service, the mirror we hold up to the nation needs to be one where everyone can see themselves. This is particularly important right now: the Government’s Green Paper on the BBC’s future was published a few weeks ago. It is an opportunity to shape the organisation for a generation, and make sure we are more accountable than ever to the public we serve.

The report is clear that the BBC does a lot of good things to reflect the country at large. You might have seen our Made of Here films, which capture extremely well how so much of what the BBC does is made all over the UK and reflects the lives of local communities. And look at shows like Blue Lights (Northern Ireland), Beyond Paradise (Cornwall), Granite Harbour (Scotland), and Death Valley (Wales).

But the report is plain about where we need to go further – not just at the BBC but as an industry as a whole. I want to focus on three insights which, if we respond effectively, will open up greater creative freedom for our sector and, at the same time, allow us more effectively to capture the richness and diversity of the United Kingdom.

The first issue is not the pursuit of diversity itself, but the way it has come to be understood. Many organisations – not just the BBC – have in the past defined diversity too narrowly, focusing predominantly on protected characteristics. This is entirely understandable and continues to have a role to play in achieving diversity.

But – and it is a big but – these “protected” characteristics concern equality law. They were developed to combat employment discrimination. It’s a wholly different thing if, as a broadcaster, one is seeking to capture the diversity of the British people. Where you are born and brought up, for example, is not a “protected” characteristic.

There is no question we should continue to bear down on any discriminatory practices when it comes to employment. However, we are a broadcaster with obligations to the entire nation.

We should keep seeking to widen the aperture through which we tackle the issue of diversity. We need to deliver content that speaks to all classes, communities, geographies, opinions, attitudes, and thoughts. Expanding our perspective on representation in this way has a profound impact on how the BBC represents the country.

But the issue is not just about representation. How people are portrayed is equally important. Even if the BBC manages to represent this wider definition of diversity in close proximation to their numbers in the population, the job is not done. What also matters is how they are depicted. Is the portrayal “authentic”?

A real barrier to answering that question is the use of aggregate terms such as B.A.M.E. – short for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic – instead of more specific language. The BBC, alongside the UK’s other main broadcasters, committed to avoiding this several years ago, but the term remains widespread in society. What it does is to group people with very different histories, religions, and cultures into a single category. This may or may not continue to be of some use, but it does have the consequence of undermining authenticity.

I worked in the independent sector for two decades and continue to speak to many of my erstwhile colleagues. They tell stories of how they are encouraged to ensure their programmes are cast with ethnic minority presence both off screen and on screen. This can result in a world of deracinated people populating our screens with little sense of history or back story that fleshes out their authentic identities.

This leads to a second telling insight. A tick box approach can be exacerbated by measuring success at an individual programme level. It results in shoehorning characters into storylines and is often the cause of inauthentic portrayal.

What this does is to suppress creative freedom. It is important that individual storylines are not artificially constrained or manipulated by the need to deliver “diversity”. A much better approach is to assess how well we portray diversity across the piece. So, the drama slate as a whole rather than individual dramas. This liberates commissioners and programme makers from concerns about including diversity, regardless of context, in each and every programme – and especially in cases where it seems inauthentic and clunky.

This leads me to the final insight. There is a sense throughout the report that many of the issues that arise when it comes to representation and portrayal are to do with a London-centric world view. Many independent producers echo this sentiment, expressing concern that the concentration of commissioning authority in London still narrows the BBC’s cultural lens.

It is important we take real steps to dismantle the idea that the BBC is congenitally “south east” in the way we present ourselves to the nation. The BBC has taken major strides to move its people and production out of London. The impact has been tremendous: MediaCity in Salford, for example, is a major creative hub enabled by the growing presence of the BBC. We can point to a similar impact in Cardiff, Glasgow, and Belfast, Bristol, Newcastle, and Birmingham.

So, yes, real progress has been made. But representation must move toward something more rooted, more resonant, and more real. That means portraying working-class communities with the same complexity and care we reserve for middle-class suburbs.

It means recognising that the UK’s East European, East Asian, or South Asian populations are not niche audiences, but integral to our national story. It means showing disabled people not only in lead roles but also as incidental characters who populate everyday life — the colleague, the neighbour, the stranger on the bus. It means casting for credibility not box ticking. And it means stories that don’t try to imagine the “real UK,” but are born out of it.

Above all, this means shifting more creative power outside the M25. If we want content that reflects the whole country, then more of it needs to be commissioned, developed, and made by people who live in the communities being portrayed — not simply visited by production crews on location.

So I have been pleased to see executives across the BBC get to grips with the challenges raised in this report. We have already committed to doubling our spend on new shows that reflect stories in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as accelerating our plans to push more decision-making out of London – including more commissioning roles in the Midlands and North of England.

Now we will also review our content plans to make sure under-represented audience groups are reflected fairly and authentically, taking action where necessary. And we will change how we measure and report on representation and portrayal to encompass class and geography.

Today, the BBC faces pressures from cash-rich global streaming platforms and intensifying international competition. To stay relevant, the BBC must embrace this competition for audiences. The report we have published points us towards new ways of delivering content that resonates with all the UK’s diverse audiences.

The BBC continues to play a central role in the culture of this country. More than a dispenser of fact-based journalism, more than the beating heart of our creative industries, more than the convenor of the nation at moments of joy and sorrow. It is the glue that helps binds together our national identity.

There is no other country in the world that has a broadcaster like the BBC. We are an instrument of social cohesion in a world ripped apart by division, disruption, and distrust. As the debate about our future gathers momentum, everyone must feel the BBC is for them. The BBC needs to ensure it reflects the whole of the UK back to itself – in all its glorious variety.

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