There has been much debate of late about ethnic diversity - or lack of it - in television, both onscreen and off. Lenny Henry put the issue back centre stage earlier this year in a speech to the RTS and an interview with MediaGuardian, in which he pointed out how little had changed since Greg Dyke labelled the BBC "hideously white".
BBC non-executive director Samir Shah waded in last week, suggesting in a nuanced speech that broadcasters had overcompensated for a shameful lack of executives, directors and writers in TV by putting too many black and Asian faces on screen.
You might think things would be better in radio, a medium that is supposed to be in touch with its audience and have a close personal relationship between DJ and listener. But listening to a panel at yesterday's Radio Festival, the same depressingly familiar picture emerged.
The Radio Academy's Elaine Williams said her recent research had found "quite a lot of goodwill" among commercial radio stations on diversity but little action. The BBC was better "but still not great".
Williams' research found commercial stations were reluctant to "get out of their offices" and go and seek out new talent from other backgrounds because they didn't see a "business case".
BBC 1Xtra's Lorna Clarke highlighted the gulf between the 11% of junior BBC employees from ethnic minorities and the 4% in management posts. "Where are these people going? They are not going into commercial radio, they are dropping out," Clarke said.
She added that executives fond of launching a slew of initiatives to address the problem should "do less, but do it better".
And BBC Asian Network presenter Adil Ray said that too often mainstream broadcasters failed to find out enough about their audiences. When he worked at Galaxy in Yorkshire, he made an effort to find out about the locality. But did London-based DJs really know what was going on in Tower Hamlets, he asked?
Simple things like pronouncing names correctly or making passing reference to festivals and events from other cultures could make a huge difference, Ray suggested.
Mark Story, the Bauer Radio chief, agreed that more should be done to encourage talent from a range of backgrounds but said it had to be hardwired into recruitment policies. It was indisputably good for business to better reflect their target audience, he said.
"Listeners don't regard Kiss as a black station. They don't regard it as having a specific racial identity. But they regard other stations as very white," Story added.
Ray said that in an ideal world his radio station wouldn't exist. "At times I do feel pigeon holed. As we are required to do all the Asian stuff and Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 4 and Five 5 won't do it? Is there an argument to say that in five years time [Asian Network] shouldn't be around? In an ideal word, we shouldn't need the Asian Network."
