Ofcom has just published its diversity monitoring report into the radio industry. It replicates the work Ofcom did in television, and the report makes interesting reading.

The first note in the report is that the data for this is very poor. They contacted 16 broadcasters to compile the report, and while all 16 reported on gender, there was missing data from at least some on ethnicity, disability, age, religious beliefs and sexual orientation.

Some topline findings:

• 62% of senior managers are male
• 81% of board level managers are male
• technical and engineering jobs are 81% male
• 52% of programming roles are male – but in commercial radio it’s 68% male compared with the BBC’s 46% male
• women have higher proportions of roles in marketing (70%), support (66%) and sales (63%)
• only 6% of the workforce are from an ethnic minority compared with 14% of the population
• of those groups that disclosed ethnicity at board level, there was no representation at all of ethnic minorities

With respect to the high proportion of men in technical and engineering jobs, Ofcom notes that there is a wider issue of encouraging women to pursue STEM subjects, with the numbers being especially bad in the UK.

The report details specific results from the BBC, Global and Bauer. Ofcom says that BBC leads the industry on diversity and inclusion, setting targets and putting initiatives in place. But this perhaps isn’t surprising since it is both a public company and recently having issues with regards to the gender pay gap.

Global has some data gaps with some ethnicity data missing and nothing on disability, age, sexual orientation or religion. It has acknowledged this and has launched a diversity strategy.

Bauer’s data is fuller, only lacking sexual orientation and religion, and has put in place initiatives to promote diversity in under-represented groups.

What Ofcom Doesn’t Measure

There is something missing from the report, and it’s something I’ve noted before since I’m certain that it impacts on many of the other measures. That’s social group or class. The social background of employees, especially within the media industry, is heavily skewed towards the upper end and this simply isn’t measured.

As I’ve said before, I believe this is down to media jobs being widely seen as glamourous, if not highly paid. Therefore, lots of people are willing to “get a foot in the door” meaning low wages. Often self-support is required, quite probably from “the bank of mum and dad.” Furthermore there is still far too much unpaid “internships” and “work experience” often lacking payment even for transport. Only those from wealthier backgrounds can afford to take up such opportunities that often require people to have accommodation in London. In so many cases, getting that foot in the door really does work, and when a job comes up, it will be those who have some experience, and perhaps are already a known quantity, who get the gigs.

I know this isn’t easy to measure, but it I wish Ofcom would attempt to do it.

Also, I’d like to know what the spread of jobs in the industry is around the country. A regional breakdown would be great. I strongly suspect that it’s heavily skewed towards London. All the major radio groups are based in London, and often have significant sales or production presences there. All this in turn means that measures like levels of ethnicity are probably are even worse, because in London the population is far more ethnically diverse than it is in the rest of the country.