Disabled people have got no senior role models in the broadcast industry

• Aparna Sreevalsan
• 2 December, 2022

DISABLED people in the broadcast industry have got no senior role models to look up to and it is holding everyone back, says Caroline O’Neill, Co-director of Deaf and Disabled People in TV.
O’Neill was one of the panellists in the session ‘Best Intentions: The Truth about Disability in TV’, as part of Channel 4’s 2022 Inclusion Festival happened on Wednesday (30).
She was talking after watching a film that was shown in between the discussion. It showed the personal, negative experiences and
treatments faced by disabled people in the industry.
O’Neill said: “We need disabled people in those senior-level roles and that will have a trickle effect because at the moment, most
disabled people, they enter the industry, they look up and they’ve got no senior role models.
“People do not have a conversation upfront with someone who is deaf, disabled, or neurodivergent, so what can we do to make this a good experience so that they can have a good career in the industry.
“We will only see authentic change if we see senior-level change. I can count the disabled people in senior roles on one hand – and that is rubbish!”
Kate Philips of BBC, watching the film, said she was shocked to see the film. “Really shocked actually. I think the shocking thing was when they said at the beginning, in the last two years, maybe I naively thought things were getting better recently. But clearly
not.” Philips was moved to tears.
She added: “The risk isn’t employing a disabled person… the risk is not having really talented people on the shows we make…”
The public criticised the shocking reaction of Philips through social media, asking her to check back in with what BBC is going to do about the situation.

Ian Katz of Channel 4 said in the discussion: “We won’t work with people who don’t work considerately with all kinds of people – including disabled people. Commissioner accountability is also really important.”
About the leadership, if you don’t have leaders that come from the ‘others’ or have been treated as ‘others’, you are never going
to get that change in the industry.” Fatima Salaria, managing director of Naked Television, expressed.
Tweets supporting Caroline O’Neill were being posted, saying, “We need the industry to face its faults and look at solutions.”.
Top broadcast firms say they have begun to work on making the industry more inclusive.