Speech by Alex Mahon, Channel 4 Chief Executive, Inclusion Festival 30/11/2022

30 November 2022

Transcript : Channel 4 Inclusion Festival, 30 November 2022

Sophie Morgan, Broadcaster and Disability Advocate speaks with Channel 4’s Chief Executive, Alex Mahon.

Sophie:

I'm Sophie Morgan, I'm a blonde, white 36-year-old woman. I'm wearing a pink dress with black, flowery detail, and I'm using a manual wheelchair. I'm delighted to be sitting here with the chief executive of Channel 4, Alex Mahon, and we're going to be talking about the Inclusion Festival.

Alex, it's been a year since the last Inclusion Festival. What's happened in this last year? How have Channel 4 moved the dial forward, and what are you most proud of?

Alex:

Hi, Sophie, I am a white 49-year-old woman wearing a white T shirt. So yes, it has been a year since this festival, and we've done a lot, but it's our job to do a lot, that's part of what Channel 4 is here for. So we've talked about our legacy from the Black to Front Project, so we've published some codes around that, about what we want to do next, what we think representation should be. We've commissioned a whole set of shows coming out of that, like Unapologetic, and we had The Big Breakfast come back, so we've done other things like that.

We've introduced a Disability Code of Portrayal, which we'll talk about later on, about what impact that might have on the industry, and then we've doubled up on 4Skills, which is our programme about bringing people into the industry that might not otherwise have the chance. So that includes all kinds of protected characteristics, but it also includes people from across the UK and it includes people who may not have traditionally thought they might get a job in our industry. That’s affecting 15,000 young people a year, so that's a big deal, because we did a pilot the year before, and now we've scaled that up. For us ourselves, internally, we're thinking about how you move away from counting people and getting to equitable representation, which we've done a lot on.

So what does that really mean in terms of inclusion? What does that really mean inside an organisation?  We've hired our first director of inclusion and we're really crunching through, well, if we were doing inclusion well, what would that mean day-to-day in the workplace? I think that may sound trivial, but it's the cutting edge of this work.

Sophie:

It is a big question. What does it mean? What does inclusion mean to you then, if you were to say, in the context of Channel 4, what does it look like?

Alex:

The question for us now is - we can have everyone in the organisation represented, great, we can measure that, but are we listening to their views?  Are we hearing their opinions? Do they even feel they can voice them? They're standard measures, and maybe the most telling one is, if your friends and family described you, and your colleagues described you, is the picture the same? Is who you really are who you can be in the office, and if it's not, it tends to mean you can't do your best work.

You can't fulfil your potential.  If you're not able to be yourself at work - and we see big discrepancies between white, heterogeneous males and other people, if what you can't be is yourself, what does that mean the organisation is missing out on? Now that's not easy to do, and it's not easy to measure, but it's probably the right thing about where we need to be next.

Sophie:

Okay, Channel 4 has always been known for being alternative, perhaps a bit disruptive, but very progressive What are you doing to try and stay relevant today to those audiences that are a little bit harder to reach?

Alex:

Well, it's difficult to be shocking and challenging and different in a TikTok world, and I totally accept that, but in a way, I think that's more needed now than it ever was because, actually, things that are trusted and true, and appeal to audiences and challenge perspectives, and maybe change people's opinions are perhaps more important than they ever were before. So let me give you some examples of what we've done recently.

Well, as you probably know, in the Winter Paralympics this year, we had the first ever - I think, ever anywhere - 100 per cent people with a disability presenting team, now that's a big deal. It may not sound like it, but you're moving away from being the one. So when the whole team is like that, the audience start to see things very, very differently. That just helps continue to challenge those preconceptions.

We had another big menopause show this year with Davina, so who would have thought that Channel 4 would be responsible for Britain running out of HRT and people having to deal it in parks,

Sophie:

Is that true?

Alex:

That's actually true. That's a taboo that shouldn't still be there in society, and it probably isn't now, but three years ago, it really was, and I talk to women all over the UK and in other countries about the difference that can make in the workplace, as well as in their personal life. So you wouldn't necessarily have thought that that's the audience that Channel 4 would be standing up for, but it's an audience that needs standing up for, so it's a big one, now people are talking about the menopause all the time. You can't get away from it, but that's good. Then maybe the third thing happened only a few weeks ago.

We brought back Friday Night Live, live with Ben Elton, for our 40th birthday, and we had a performer in, a comedian called Jordan Gray, and she's trans, and she stripped naked at the end of the performance, and that was the first time I think really on mainstream television you see a trans body and what that looks like. That's really important, it was a beautiful moment of trans expression. It was lovely. What's great is a couple of thousand people complained to Ofcom, and Ofcom back us and say it's perfectly, perfectly appropriate to put that on television. What's even more powerful is young people writing to Jordan and talking about how that made them feel better about themselves, and better about what they are going through. This is a really difficult time for young people, and that kind of thing, the normalising of different body types is really, really important. So all the time, we're looking for what the next frontier is, and that's a good struggle for us to be going through to think about.

Sophie:

We talk a lot about the importance of on-screen representation, but off-screen representation is just as important. What do you think the industry could do to be better in this space, and how is Channel 4 perhaps leading the way?

Alex:

So I think it's easier to fix on-screen than it is off-screen.

Sophie:

Why do you think that?

Alex:

I think it's very visible, you can push producers to cast, you can measure it easily, we've got schemes in place that do the measurement, so I think we've been going down that road in the UK for some years. Of course, we've been at the forefront of it, but now I think that's relatively easy to do. I think, what's much harder, because we can't see it as easily, is to do that off-screen representation. I would say it's arguably more important because it's what changes our industry over time. It's what changes how people make decisions on-set, it changes the creative, it changes the tenure of the editorial conversation. I think we've changed it broadly within the building in Channel 4 and at the other broadcasters, but it's about what you do on crews, it's about all the challenges that we know are faced there.

So for us, there are two things. There's how do we measure that, and we've set in place guidelines about what we want in terms of production, and how do we do that with our production partners? Then there's what are we doing to make sure that more crews and talent are available in the industry, and companies that are run by people who aren't represented can be scaled. So we have a scheme, which is called the Momentum scheme with We Are Parable, which is a training programme for 60 black television producers in the UK, so that's getting us to more equitable representation. We have the Indie Accelerator with The TV Collective, and you can see in all of these, we're partnering with experts, we're not thinking that we know best. So that's the second iteration of that, and that is about pairing people with a Channel 4 commissioner to make sure that they have a mentoring buddy system, to make sure that they've got every opportunity they could have to get commissions. So it's not just saying, 'We'll do this.' It's actually matching people to make sure those relationships are built, because they take a bit of nurturing, and it's that work that's fiddly and tough to do.

Then we're also trying to put our money where our mouth is by being the first broadcaster to measure supply chain. So that's something that, in environmental areas, has been done for a long time. You measure the percentage of spend that you have with types of companies, but we're now measuring the percentage of spend that we have with independents that are run or controlled by ethnically diverse staff. So that starts to make an effect down the supply chain and means that you're not just left with The One Show. That's the kind of stuff that we need to be doing to make a difference that's sustainable over time.

Sophie:

Alex, how do you think the industry and the channel are making it easier or more inclusive for disabled talent to work in production?

Alex:

I think this is really important, and is the next frontier for all of us in the industry. We'll talk about your show in a minute, but you know that for too long we've been in a - only one special adjustments category, and we haven't thought about it across the industry. So first of all, there's things like the whole industry and we are working on access coordinators. So you will know that often, access requirements are not thought through, and they're particularly not thought through on-set. So we're training up across the industry people to specifically do that role, often, at the most simplistic end, someone can get to a set and find there aren't any accessible bathrooms and have a half hour journey face them, but there are all kinds of needs that are not taken account of, so that's like one thing across the industry. Even just talking about that makes a difference.

We have launched what I think is the industry's first Disability Code of Portrayal.

It includes a whole set of things. At the one end, we're talking about always having senior editorial disabled input into storylines where relevant, now whether that's with us or with consultants, to make sure that the perspective and the editorial thinking is done by someone who has expertise and experience. That's actually a kind of big deal because it's moving away from preconceptions.

Then we've classed the portrayal in shows into three categories. Incidental, integrated and core, ranging from where someone has a disability, but it's never referred to, it's never mentioned - it just has occurred in that character - to where it's sometimes mentioned but it's not really the focus of the story, to where it really is a key part of what the representation is in role. I think that's quite important as we move away from the one disabled character. Maybe talk about one of your shows, and what that means.

Sophie:

Yes, so when the Code of Portrayal came out and I used that as a framework to look at the ways in which I've worked as a presenter, and the shows that I've been used in or I've fronted, it was really helpful to break down the ways in which it differed. For me, for example, the show that I've just done, it was very much my disability was integral, it wasn't really often referred to, but it wasn't ignored. So I would, for example, bring my support worker into the frame to actually show how I would get from one location to another because often, that used to just be skipped over.

Alex:

It looked like magic.

Sophie:

It looked like magic. You'd suddenly see the disabled person sitting in this amazing location, but for somebody who is watching, who has a similar disability, you kind of go, 'How did they get there?' So breaking that wall, taking that away and actually explaining how I work as disabled talent was really empowering to put that on-screen and I think speaks to the importance of authentic representation, not just representation. For me, also, I think it's an exciting framework to use, the Code of Portrayal, so that I can actually say - if I approach a production company to develop ideas, I will say, 'Look, I want my disability to be incidental,' or, 'I want my disability to be the core part of this development, and the idea needs to be all focusing around disability.' So it is a game changer, I feel, and I'm very grateful for it being there as a way for us all to be able to just talk to one another about how we put disability on-screen.

Alex:

And also see the impact it can make on the audience.

Sophie:

I think, for us to see progress, Alex, as a disabled talent, I feel there needs to be these three types of representation because you can't just have one without the other two, otherwise it wouldn't feel like there was a sensitivity to actually the truth in the storytelling, but actually, sometimes it needs it.

Alex:

I think, where we've come to now is this is a range. So it needs to be nuanced, it needs to be authentic, but also, sometimes people need to understand the adjustments or changes that need to be made. Moving into a place where we can see that these are a range will be better for the audience, but hopefully, also, it means, from a talent or a crew perspective, there is more ability to discuss how representation occurs.

Sophie:

So it is the 40th anniversary of Channel 4. Obviously, you're going to be looking over the 40 years and thinking about how far the channel has come. What does the next 40 years look like for you, Alex? What would success look like for you?

Alex:

Well, I think, for us at Channel 4, it's always about where is the next frontier? Where is the next place to get into trouble? Where is the next place where there are issues? Where is the next place where maybe some challenge needs to occur? So, so far, we haven't run out of those places, but we'll see where they are next. I'm sure that our industry has got a long way to run on thinking about how we can represent more equitably, so I reckon there will be plenty more. Lots to do.

Sophie:

Thank you so much.

Alex:

Thanks.