BBC New Hiring Guidelines: One in Six Stars ‘Must Be Gay or Lesbian or Disabled’ by 2020

In a continued push for onscreen diversity, BBC’s new staff-hiring guidelines have indicated that one-in-six stars “must be gay or lesbian or disabled” by 2020. In addition, half of the corporation’s broadcasting roles are to be held women, who currently make up 48.5% of its overall workforce. 13.1% of BBC’s employees are black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME), with a new target of 15% by 2020.

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A spokesperson for BBC said in a statement that

“We are making good progress in our work to make the BBC a truly diverse organisation, but there’s more to do and we’re always keen to improve. Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our workforce who are black, Asian and other ethnic minorities is at an all-time high. We’ll continue doing what works but also develop new and innovative ideas to do even better, and we’ll set this out in our new diversity strategy shortly.”

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The new targets come in the wake of a debate about BBC’s diversity in the House of Commons led by Member of Parliament David Lammy.

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