ITV plans to reserve £80 million of its content commissioning budget over the next three years to drive change towards racial equity and disability equity.
Of this amount, at least £20 million will be reserved for content made by Black, Asian and minority ethnic-led and disabled-led production companies.
ITV has also created a new £500,000 development fund to develop ideas that will qualify for the Diversity Commissioning Fund.
To qualify for the fund, productions must meet a series of criteria. These include having Black, Asian or minority ethnic and/or disabled individuals in ownership or leadership roles, alongside diverse stories and salary spend.
Complementing similar initiatives by the BBC and Channel 4, and developed in consultation with the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, ITV said its Diversity Commissioning Fund is designed to drive lasting change across the sector.
ITV CEO Carolyn McCall said: “Today’s announcement builds on ITV’s Diversity Acceleration Plan. We want to keep up the momentum and drive more progress at ITV and across the industry, so that our audiences can see their broad range of experiences and perspectives reflected in our content.”
Ade Rawcliffe, ITV’s Group Director of Diversity and Inclusion, explained the new initiative: “ITV is committed to creating content by, with and for everyone, connecting and reflecting modern audiences. We want more people of colour and disabled people to be able to tell their stories and get opportunities in senior production roles. With this reserve fund, we’re working to speed up progress in a sustainable way, and play our part to change the structure of the industry.”
ITV has 14.2% off-screen and 17.5% on-screen representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic creatives, and 4.5% off-screen and 9.6% on-screen representation of disabled creatives, according to data collected via Diamond, an industry-wide data collection system for monitoring and reporting diversity in broadcasting.
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