Oxbridge educated David Dimbleby, David Attenborough and former BBC DG Mark Thompson, with Martin Bean, former VC of the Open University. The OU, which promotes social justice and equal opportunities, has an ongoing partnership with the BBC. Credit: OU
The BBC appears commendably focused on representing its audience. Given its reach, and the fact that most of us pay the licence fee, the corporation has a duty to reflect the general public. A variety of training schemes and targets have been implemented over the years to improve representation in terms of gender, ethnicity and ability, both among BBC employees and within programming. However, when it comes to class, the BBC seems to have a blind spot.
The BBC Trust’s service review of its news and current affairs programming underlined the challenge of representation:
