When Sheila Atim received the Screen Nation Female Performance In Film Award on 28 April for her performance in Shanty Productions’ first feature, a full text version of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, she couldn’t have known the BBC would deny the film’s significance in supplementary evidence to a Lords Committee, submitted personally by Lord Hall, the BBC Director General.
The Lords Communications Committee is holding an enquiry into public service broadcasting in the age of video on demand. The committee is asking how serious the threat to public service broadcasting is, whether it is worth saving, and what form it could take in future.
It is taking the issue of BAME representation seriously. The Committee’s call for evidence said: “Research for Ofcom suggested that Netflix had particular appeal to BAME groups, who saw it as more representative than the BBC.”
