The BBC’s appointment of another white man as director general is an own goal against diversity

There are many things we have to thank the BBC for: entertaining us with Killing Eve, Line of Duty, Monty Python, The Goon Show, The News Quiz and The Unbelievable Truth; broadening our horizons with Sir David Attenborough and informing us with Peter Taylor’s coverage of Northern Ireland; Kate Adie’s reporting from war zones around the world, as well as a sprawling news operation that is the envy of many.

Growing up in Ireland, I watched the BBC and Channel 4 News bulletins – as well as the state broadcaster RTE News – every day due to my news-obsessive parents, constantly fascinated by events both at home and abroad. As a young child, very little probably seeped in. But I do clearly remember my father ordering me to sit down in front of the TV on Friday 11 April 1998 because “history was being made”.

That day we switched between the BBC and RTE watching – probably with no small modicum of disbelief – as Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern put pen to paper and made the Good Friday Peace Agreement a reality. Despite growing up in another country, the BBC was always there. Millions around the United Kingdom will have similar stories.

And yet despite its ubiquity in all our lives, the BBC is seen by many as an impenetrable fortress. It feels unrepresentative of them – due to their age, their skin colour, their gender. We pay our TV licence and yet feel underserved by the corporation’s output which has, in the past, not matched up with the face and voice of modern Britain.

A report released by Ofcom in 2018 found that while the BBC – and TV in general – is “better at representing and portraying a mix of people that it used to be”, there was still more work to be done. Older women still felt less visible. Disabled people said their storylines “tended to focus on their differences and struggles”. LGBT+ people said TV gave a “skewed impression of their experiences”. Some from black African and black African-Caribbean backgrounds thought their communities were “portrayed negatively”.

The feedback didn’t end there: respondents still found the BBC too London focused – and city-centric. Lazy stereotypes were said to persist: the Scottish being aggressive, the Welsh perceived as always being ridiculed.

For those who want to work there, it has long been said that the BBC is nigh on impossible for an outsider to get into – permanent staff positions often tend to go to people already working within the corporation.

When it comes to more high-profile jobs, however, there is usually a mix of both insiders and the “lesser-known quantities” that constitute external candidates. So when director general Lord Tony Hall announced his intention to stand down from the corporation’s top job in January this year, the shortlist was going to have to feature some variety.

It was a glorious opportunity for the corporation to herald a new era of diversity, change and progress. In its history the BBC has had 16 directors general. All white. All male.

“The job should go to the best candidate”, I can hear some (men) cry. Of course it should. Let’s remember that it is a truth universally acknowledged that while so much about the BBC is great, it needs to change. It is facing the kind of threats – both political and competitive – that are unlike anything in its history.

The best candidate for that kind of reincarnation is rarely, if ever, an insider. They can’t see the wood for the trees and they’re too close to it all. They have colleagues with whom they understandably form friendships and loyalties to be able to remain objective and make unpopular decisions. Tim Davie, the new director general, comes from a commercial background and, unlike many predecessors, is not a journalist by trade, so that may help. But his appointment hardly represents a whole new dawn for the corporation.

We also need to consider how the longlist is compiled and who then has the responsibility to select candidates to put forward for interview, as well as who conducts those interviews. Because all of these factors play an important role. Subtle (and sometimes overt, because sadly they still exist) prejudices within each person will affect every decision made in this process.

Now I don’t know who was responsible for each of these stages – but when one considers that the BBC’s board of directors is made of 13 members, of which eight are men and five are women, only one director is of a non-white ethnicity. And the guy who got the job is already on the board: this does not seem like they’re going about it the right way really, does it?

Looking at the rest of the shortlist of likely candidates before Davie’s appointment, there was one woman, Charlotte Moore – BBC’s director of content. So two of the four on the shortlist were internal.

The remaining two? You guessed it: white men. I find it hard to fathom that of all the 66 million or so people living in the UK, the best four potential candidates to turn around the BBC and see through its transformation were all white and only one woman. For the avoidance of doubt, I have no problem with white men – I’m married to one. My dad’s one. I’ll even admit that lots of my friends and family are – though not all.

The issue here is that the BBC was presented with an open goal in order to mark a real step change in their attempts to make the corporation succeed in the 21st century.

That is going to be tough: the royal charter renewal negotiations with a government seemingly dead set against, if not the organisation as a whole, then at least the licence fee. Then there’s the ever-evolving battleground of the streaming giants to contend with, as well as how to make enough cash to keep the corporation going, especially if they do lose the licence fee either in part or in full.

The long shadow cast by the equal pay within the organisation hasn’t gone away and as opposed to striking home an impressive statement of intent, the ball’s been clumsily knocked backwards and we have an own goal against diversity.