Asian Voice has been mentioned in an article by The Sunday Time in reference to the recent BBC controversy, where the corporation has been accused of discrimination and lack of promotion prospects for ethnic minorities- including Asians. Only 13.4% of BBC's staff is from the Black Asian Minority Ethnic community. Anjula Singh, interviewed by this newspaper was described as the most senior Asian lady in BBC, in her job as the Deputy Head of Production Operations [Page 9, AV 6 Feb 2016, https://www.asian-voice.com/Opinion/Columnists/Rani-Singh/Presenting-The-Most-Senior-Asian-Lady-in-the-BBC-Anjula-Singh). It is understood she left eight weeks ago, as well as Tamara Howe, who was BBC's controller of business, comedy and entertainment.
The Sunday Times reported that it was apparently contacted by disgruntled ethnic minority BBC staff after it emerged that Aaqil Ahmed, head of religion and ethics, would leave the corporation and overall responsibility for religion would be handed to James Purnell, a former Labour cabinet minister, who is white.
“There is a haemorrhaging of senior staff from ethnic minority backgrounds,” one said. “There are serious questions about the diversity of the BBC.”
Besides Liliane Landor, head of languages for the World Service, who left in the summer and Elonka Soros, who had worked as part of the team supporting Lord Hall, Tony Phillips, commissioning editor at the World Service and Radio 4, it is reported by the newspaper that Jawad Iqbal, a senior executive and senior editor at BBC News, is also leaving the corporation.
Eight black and Asian executives, including some who had been tipped for the upper echelons of the corporation, have quit or are in the process of leaving.
Trevor Phillips, the founding chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, described the BBC’s record as “deeply, deeply disappointing” and said it was guilty of “snowy white peak syndrome” for its failure to promote people from ethnic minorities.
He reportedly said the setback to people of black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) backgrounds was particularly disappointing because it came more than two years after the BBC hailed a campaign led by the actor and comedian Sir Lenny Henry to increase their presence.
Phillips further added: “[We were right] to say that their response at the time was about bringing people in at a very junior level, while at the top of the pyramid there seemed to be very little place for people of a minority background.”
His frustration echoed comments made by Sir Lenny Henry when he launched his campaign to MPs and told them: “Chiwetel Ejiofor and Idris Elba [who were born in Britain but found acting fame in America] didn’t need more training, they just needed a break.”
Marcus Ryder, who recently left his job as head of current affairs at BBC Scotland to move to Beijing with his wife, reportedly said the BBC should be held to higher standards than other media outlets.
According to the most recent BBC staff figures, published in July, more BAMEpeople left the BBC (474) last year than joined it (469).
This could be explained by the fact that the corporation is cutting staff, but the figures also show that employees of Bame origin are leaving at a faster rate than white Britons.
They are allegedly promoted less often than white British staff (23% last year compared with 28%) and of those that leave, fewer get a redundancy package (12% rather than 14%).
From April the BBC’s progress on diversity will come under the scrutiny of the media watchdog Ofcom, which has said it is falling short on and off screen.
Phillips argues that the public’s viewing habits may be the catalyst to push the BBC into changing its upper ranks. BBC2 is Britain’s “whitest” terrestrial channel by audience ethnicity, followed by BBC1.
The BBC said: “No broadcaster has a more diverse workforce or more stretching targets than the BBC.
“We currently have our highest ever percentage of Bame staff and different people leave and join the organisation all the time, which is what happens in any business.
“The BBC runs a number of schemes designed to attract and develop Bame talent.”
