A row has broken out over the lack of ethnic diversity among Channel 4’s new board members, as the broadcaster’s chair criticised the government’s decision to appoint four white directors.
The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, approved the appointments on Monday of five new non-executive directors to join the Channel 4 board and they were announced by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom.
In an internal memo first reported by the Telegraph, the broadcaster’s chair, Sir Ian Cheshire, said the selection lagged behind Channel 4’s diversity targets.
“These appointments will improve representation on the board but do not yet meet the levels of representation throughout the rest of the organisation,” he wrote. “Appointments to the board are not ultimately in our control due to procedural reasons but we are committed to continuing to push for further progress.”
Ofcom appoints non-executive directors to the Channel 4 board with the approval of the culture secretary. The new appointments include the Boots chief executive, Sebastian James, the advertising veteran Dame Annette King, the Warner Records UK managing director Alex Burford and the entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow.
Tom Adeyoola, a technology entrepreneur, was the only minority ethnic appointment.
This means that 14 of the 15 members of Channel 4’s board are white – equivalent to about 93%. In comparison, 18% of its workforce is from an ethnically diverse background, although it aims to increase this figure to 20%.
Adeyoola said on LinkedIn that he “couldn’t be more excited to be joining the board of Channel 4”, adding: “As the child of immigrants growing up in London, Channel 4 always spoke to me as a place of possibility, purpose, and provocation. It was also a place where all were welcome.”
Four of the new board members joined the broadcaster’s board on Monday for three-year terms, while Burford will start in June. The recruitment search was run by the executive search agency Russell Reynolds.
Cheshire sat on a recruitment panel that interviewed candidates, which was headed by the Ofcom chair, Lord Grade, who is also a former Channel 4 boss.
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The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “DCMS is absolutely committed to advancing equality of opportunity in its public appointments, to ensure that boards of public bodies benefit from a range of diverse perspectives and are representative of the people they serve.
“Appointments to the Channel 4 board were made by Ofcom following a fair and open competition, with approval from the DCMS secretary of state.”
Channel 4 plans has told its 1,200 strong workforce to expect job cuts, as it seeks to accelerate its shift to streaming amid the worst TV advertising downturn in 15 years. The round of redundancies, first reported by the Guardian and expected cover as many as 200 jobs, come as the broadcaster braces for two years of financial losses after three years of surpluses up to 2022. It has cut back on commissioning to extend budgets.
A year ago, the government abandoned its plan to privatise Channel 4 after opposition from the vast majority of the media industry.
