BBC non-executive director Samir Shah last night re-opened the debate about the lack of top level managers from ethnic minorities in British TV, with the controversial assertion that broadcasters had overcompensated for this by putting too many black and Asian faces on screen.
In a passionate and well researched speech to the Royal Television Society, prompted by the recent comments from comedian Lenny Henry about the continued lack of diversity in British broadcasting, Shah said policies to bring more ethnic minorites to TV had failed.
Shah, a former BBC head of current affairs who now runs his own independent production company, Juniper, said the lack of executives from ethnic minority backgrounds had led to a "world of deracinated coloured people flickering across our screens - to the irritation of many viewers and the embarrassment of the very people such actions are meant to appease".
He argued that UK television had to go back to the drawing board to increase the number of black and Asian executives.
"The difficult truth I want you to accept is this: the equal opportunity policies we have followed over the last 30 years simply have not worked," he said.
"Despite 30 years of trying, the upper reaches of our industry, the positions of real creative power in British broadcasting, are still controlled by a metropolitan, largely liberal, white, middle class, cultural elite - and, until recently, largely male and largely Oxbridge.
"The fine intentions of equal opportunities - and they are fine intentions - have produced a forest of initiatives, schemes and action plans. But they have not resulted in real change.
"The result has been a growing resentment and irritation at the straitjacket on freedom such policies impose and, paradoxically, the occasionally embarrassing overcompensation in an effort to do the right thing."
Shah said the reason there were so few executives from ethnic minority backgrounds in broadcasting was not because of institutional racism, but because managers liked to "clone" themselves when picking other senior staff.
"The search for comfort can take precedence over the search for the best, because cultural cloning carries no immediate cost," he added.
Shah said that when recruiting new senior staff, managers should think about the diversity of their team.
He said it was seven years since former BBC director general Greg Dyke's assertion that the corporation was "hideously white", and not much had changed since then, with 11% of BBC staff at lower grades from an ethnic minority but only 4% from its higher grades. "Something odd is happening here," he said.
He pointed to two high ranking BBC executives from an Asian background - Zarin Patel and Bal Samra - but said they were on the business and not creative side of the corporation.
He related a story that when he was newly appointed as head of current affairs more than 20 years ago, he went over to meet one of his editors, only to be asked by his PA whether he was the taxi driver.
He says he is sure that wouldn't happen today. Is he right?
