Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has vowed to put “rocket boosters” under broadcasters’ efforts to improve regional diversity, declaring that the industry’s London bias should “shame” all who work in it.
In her keynote to the Royal Television Society London Convention – her first major speech since taking up the post in June – Nandy said TV is “one of the most centralised and exclusive industries in the UK”.
Pointing to the success of the Midlands-based drama Peaky Blinders, Nandy said that public service broadcasters “have no right” to the name if they did not grasp and contribute to the various thriving regional production bases across the UK.
“Talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. If you’ve moved jobs and people and content, but the heads of departments and commissioners are still in an office in London, do something about it.”
Nandy acknowledged that improving national and regional diversity can be challenging, but stressed the long-term pay-off and promised the government will do “everything it can to put rocket boosters under your efforts”.
Her comments were echoed by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, who spoke of the strengths of Birmingham’s Digbeth Loc Studios, which has housed projects such as his recent BBC1 drama Our Town, the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie and his planned Netflix saga about the Guinness family empire.
He said the Digbeth hub, and its surrounding affordable housing, has been purposely designed to be a “catalyst for change” by cutting down on commute times, encouraging walking or cycling to work, and establishing a “truly creative environment” in which to work.
Knight posited introducing flexible tax levies that could, for example, temporarily expand in specific areas to stimulate production.
Describing his breakthrough movie Dirty Pretty Things as inspired by his belief that “the story of the minicab driver is more interesting than the story of the passenger,” he added: “If you don’t tell the story of 70% of the country, you’re missing at least 70% of the stories.”
