±«Óãtv

The ±«Óãtv has pledged to spend £100 million of its TV commissioning budget over three years from April 2021 on diverse content. It will also be supported by a 20% diverse-talent target in all new commissions.

A Joint statement made by Director-General Tony Hall, Director of Creative Diversity June Sarpong and Director of Content Charlotte Moore on 22 June 2020.

It's now nearly a month since the senseless killing of George Floyd, and we have seen a powerful anti-racist movement gather momentum worldwide. All of us have spoken a lot together about the role of the ±«Óãtv at this time: how we can help lead the way; what we can do to be an instrument of change.

We need to step up. The ±«Óãtv is impartial, but are also unequivocal: there is no impartiality when it comes to racism. We stand in support of the black community. This is a moment to question ourselves harder than ever about whether we're doing enough to help tackle racism and drive progress within both our industry and society as a whole.

The ±«Óãtv has a long history of celebrating creative diversity. For almost 100 years it has not simply been our responsibility to represent and reflect the whole of the country we serve, it has been fundamental to our values. That's always been our ambition – but sometimes we've fallen short. We have an opportunity now to make those values count more than ever. We are committed to being the home of diverse creative talent, but we need to go further.

Our Creative Diversity Unit has been working right across the organisation in recent months, supporting our divisions to accelerate our progress on inclusion and raise the level of our ambition. In the last few weeks we have been listening hard, taking time and care to work out what more we can do to help make this a real turning point and how best we can be part of the solution. It cannot be about warm words or good intentions. It has to be about action.

We know that it's the content we make which, perhaps more than anything else, will demonstrate the scale of our commitment to achieving our goals. And we know this is where we can not only drive meaningful change that's felt by audiences but also create a strong framework to help diverse storytellers succeed at all levels of the industry.

That's why we are today announcing the ±«Óãtv's Creative Diversity Fund. It's a pledge to spend £100 million of our commissioning budget over the next three years on diverse content.

Our aim is that this new fund, alongside our forthcoming Diversity Code of Practice, will achieve three things. It will provide our audiences with even more creative and diverse content. It will support more diverse storytellers, with more support for stories that recognise and explore the nuances across the full breadth of B.A.M.E. experience. And it will be the starting point for a whole series of important commitments over the months ahead that will ensure the ±«Óãtv can lead the way for creative diversity within, and behalf of, the whole industry.

With this fund we are throwing open the doors of the ±«Óãtv more widely than ever to diverse stories and diverse storytellers. It is the first step of an ambitious journey we are on to transform the ±«Óãtv inside and out, better represent the public we serve, and make a real difference in society at a critical time.