Creative Diversity

Click for 2016: Channel 4's Year of Disability

Channel 4 has a world class reputation for innovation and is ready to invest in the next generation of creative content. Our ambition is to be the most Creatively Diverse broadcaster in Europe. Click here to find out more.

The Creative Diversity team spearhead Channel 4’s Diversity Charter, which launched in January 2015, puts a commitment to diversity at the heart of everything that we do, both on and off screen.  We work with diverse, new and emergent companies – focussing on creative diversity of supply, both regionally and culturally. The team is embedded within creative commissioning and works across all genres and platforms. We commission developments and pilots in partnership with genre commissioning editors to bring talent into the system and make their early work more likely to be taken forward into full production.

The main funding vehicle within the Creative Diversity team is the Alpha Fund. This is a development fund that can assist start-ups, BAME-led and regionally based companies as well as projects with diverse content or talent attached.

To access the Alpha Fund, an idea must first be submitted to the relevant genre commissioning editor, as part of the general commissioning process. Once an idea or company has interest from a commissioning editor, the next stage is to approach a member of the Creative Diversity team to discuss  development funding from the Alpha Fund.

Examples of programmes supported through the Alpha Fund are: Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True, NHS: £2 Billion a Week & Counting, A Very British Brothel, Empire: The Phenomenon, My Trans Story, and The Black Lesbian Handbook.