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Broadcasting and Creative Industries Disability Network

Guide to Broadcasting & disability

Who Created This Guide?

This guide is written by the Broadcasting and Creative Industries Disability Network (BCIDN) based in London. It is taken from the collective experience of the Network and its members who have been working together to try and improve matters for disabled people in broadcasting, film and advertising for the past decade.

The BCIDN was formed by the UK's leading broadcasters, film and television producers, and audio-visual industry organisations to increase the inclusion of disabled people in their work. Although competing for audiences, these organisations jointly funded the Network to make it easier for them to share and deliver best practice across the industry, and to engage with disabled people as fellow broadcasters, programme-makers, potential employees, viewers and stakeholders.

In a Manifesto published in 2002 the Network's member organisations (BBC, ITV, C4, Five, BSkyB, Discovery Networks Europe, Turner Broadcasting System, the UK Film Council, Producers' Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT), and the Central Office of Information (COI)) all committed to:

The Broadcasters' and Creative Industries' Disability Network is a specialist network of the Employers' Forum on Disability. The Forum is an employers' organisation whose members understand the business rationale for becoming disability confident. They recognize that disability affects their employees, potential employees, their customers, and the markets and communities in which they operate.

Who Is This Guide For?

This website guide is intended for all broadcasters and producers, including those of you who work in mainstream programme areas, from news to light entertainment and from drama to documentary. It is not just for programme makers working on specialist disability output. Although we use the term "programme" makers, much of the guide is also relevant to people working on other audio-visual content such as feature films, advertising commercials, non-broadcast videos, pop promos, and interactive multimedia products. Some of the guide is also relevant to commissioning editors, human resource managers, technical staff and staff working directly with listeners and viewers.

Why Do You Need To Use This Guide?

The guide is designed to help you think about how to be more inclusive in your programme-making. Some of the information also relates to how your organisation can become more disability confident.

The number of people with disabilities is growing, particularly as populations age. Depending on how disability is defined it is safe to say that, as far as the UK and Europe is concerned, between 15-20% of the population of any country is disabled. This applies to both men and women, and people of different racial backgrounds. One in three people between the ages of 50 to 65 are likely to be disabled and this is a growing sector of the population.

Increasingly, industry and commerce is alert to the numbers and economic importance of people with disabilities in our society. The audio-visual industries should be no exception. After all, disabled people help to pay for the industries by buying television licences, advertised products, cinema tickets, DVDs, videos, subscriptions to broadcast services and so on. However, we have additional responsibilities, because of the fundamental role we play in responding to and shaping public attitudes.

People with disabilities are a significant part of your audience – whether they are listeners, viewers or web users. Yet they are almost invisible in programmes and significantly under-represented in the industry's workforce. Improving this is first and foremost a challenge for senior managers in the sector as well as for all producers. The way you report and portray people with disabilities will affect society's attitude to disability.

More fundamentally, the best way of ensuring that people with disabilities are reflected on-screen and on-air is that they are adequately reflected in the programme-making workforce. To neglect this almost certainly means that you are missing out on a group of talented colleagues who are also disabled. Since a significant proportion of the industry's workforce is usually on short-term, freelance contracts, this is not an environment that is conducive to equality of opportunity and fair representation.

Disability is still marginal to most producers. If they feature at all, disabled contributors usually appear in programmes about disability, and production teams working on disability output may hire some disabled staff. Although this can provide disabled people with their first break and valuable work experience, disabled people still find it hard to move up the career ladder or on to non-specialist programme-making.

Please read and use this guide, which reflects the combined experience of many broadcasters and programme-makers. It is full of positive, realistic, practical and empowering advice to help you make your own contribution to ensuring that your programmes reflect the importance of people with disabilities to both the audio-visual industries and to our society. People with disabilities are individuals with their own stories to tell and their own perspective on life that will enrich your programmes. Without doubt, you will also enrich your own experience. There is a great deal that an individual producer can do.

How to Use this Guide

This guide has 6 main sections of information:

  1. Opening Introduction including law (you are now in this section)
  2. Disabled people participating in programmes
  3. Employing disabled people as programme-makers
  4. Disabled access to broadcast services
  5. Adjustments and aids for people with specific disabilities
  6. Communicating with disabled people

The guide has been divided into a number of smaller sections in order that you can move from one to another, according to your current needs and interest. The information is provided as a range of suggestions for you to choose from, and implement in ways most appropriate to your own productions. There is a certain amount of repetition between sections for clarity and, although you may not need to read the entire guide at one time, you are advised to cross reference the sections.

Tight deadlines and budget pressures inevitably affect programme ideas and your choice of production personnel, contributors and interviewees. You probably rely heavily on personal contacts to recruit people onto your production teams. Similar pressures and demands may also affect your choice of contributors and interviewees. Yet a few simple steps go a long way to improving your output and making your workplace more diverse.

The ideas in this guide come from film and programme makers in news, entertainment, factual, drama and documentary. They are aimed at all programme makers, not just those working on specialist disability output.

Many broadcasters and producers have already improved the way they portray or employ disabled people. As one senior programme producer put it: "Don't worry about being politically correct, just do it, and you can see that you CAN make a difference!"

What is a Disability?

Definitions of disability vary. In the UK the definition used in the Disability Discrimination Act says that a disability is:

“A physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

Unfortunately most definitions of disability do not take into consideration the social context or environment in which a person is living, and the attitudes they may encounter – all of which can be as disabling as an individual impairment.

The term "disabled" is far broader than you might think. Many people automatically think of a wheelchair user when they hear the term "disabled person". In fact fewer than eight per cent of disabled people use wheelchairs continuously.

A disabled person might be someone with epilepsy, diabetes, a facial disfigurement, a mental illness (including depression), a visual impairment, a hearing impairment, arthritis, learning difficulties (including dyslexia), mobility difficulties, an amputation or a severe stutter.

Many people with disabilities are not generally recognised as such, because many disabilities are not visible (for example, mental illness, epilepsy, dyslexia or learning difficulties) and in addition people may not think of themselves as disabled.

Unfortunately, the term "disabled people" suggests that all disabled people are alike, embracing similar views, attitudes, and life experiences. However, disabled people are so numerous and their impairments so varied this is simply not the case. Obviously, life will be very different for an 18-year-old paralympian, a 38-year-old with multiple sclerosis, a 52-year-old with impaired sight and a 70-year-old person with dyslexia. Similarly, even though we refer to disabled people as though they were a unified group, don't assume that all disabled people (or even all visually impaired people) agree with each other or have the same thoughts and ambitions.

It isn't so long ago that having a disability was believed to be a punishment for being evil or bad. Disability has also been seen traditionally as a medical matter with disabled people viewed as ill or invalids, or as a charitable matter with disabled people considered pitiable or plucky.

Equality of opportunity in employment is a basic human right. Disabled people ought to be employed on the basis of their merits and capability, the same as everyone else. There is now a growing awareness that disability is a priority and should be seen in the same light as equality for other under-represented groups. In the social model of disability it is society which erects the barriers before disabled people and which makes it difficult for disabled people to achieve equality. These barriers include lack of awareness, negative attitudes, lack of opportunity and the lack of appropriate facilities including inaccessible buildings. By removing such barriers, society can ensure that disabled people are able to participate in the same way, or a similar way, to the wider community.

Law on Disability

All European countries now have their own laws on disability. Although these laws are based on the EC legislation, they may differ somewhat in what they cover. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) covers employment, physical access, goods and services, training and education. However there is also additional legislation, the Communications Act 2003, which controls broadcasting. This includes requirements for making access to services for disabled people (for example, making provision for certain percentages of programmes to be sub-titled or audio-described). Both acts are enforced by two separate organisations – the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Government Office of Communications (Ofcom). Obviously if legislation is not enforced it has limited effect.

The EC Legislation

In 2000 the European Community (EC) enacted two laws (or in EC terminology, Directives) that prevent people in the European Union from being discriminated against on grounds of race and ethnic origin (in short: Racial Equality Directive), and on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (in short: Employment Framework Directive). The two Directives define a set of principles that offer everyone in the EU citizens a common minimum level of legal protection against discrimination.

They follow directly from Article 13 of the Treaty establishing the EC and were unanimously agreed by the EU governments within 18 months of the Treaty of Amsterdam entering into force in May 1999. All EU Member States were due to have transposed the Directives into national laws by the end of 2003. However, this process has not been uniformly applied in the EU countries. For those that did not meet the deadlines for compliance, and had not requested an extension period, the European Community has now initiated infringement procedures to ensure that transposition occurs.

Employment and occupation are key elements in guaranteeing equal opportunities for all. They contribute strongly to the full participation of citizens in economic, cultural and social life, and to realising their potential. For nearly 50 years, the European Member States have worked towards achieving a high level of employment and social protection, increased standards in living and quality of life, economic and social cohesion and solidarity. They have also endeavoured to create an area of freedom, security and justice. Discrimination can seriously undermine these achievements, and damage social integration in the labour force and at large.

Concerning disability, the European Union has recently adopted a strategy whose purpose is to mainstream disability issues into relevant Community policies and develop concrete actions in crucial areas to enhance the integration of people with disabilities.

In deciding on an EU Anti-discrimination directive in November 2000 the Member States undertook (if they had not already done so) to prohibit discrimination of people with disabilities and others on the labour market and in the workplace and in vocational training. Reasonable adjustments of workplaces to the needs of people who have disabilities is one of major changes in this legislation.

Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled People

The EC legislation refers to "reasonable accommodation" or ("fitting"). Throughout this guide we prefer to use the term "reasonable adjustments", as used in the UK's DDA.

The concept of reasonable adjustments means those steps which you might need to take to ensure that the impact of a disabled person's disability or impairment is minimised. You need to consider making reasonable adjustments for disabled job applicants, new employees, employees who become disabled and for people whom you invite to your studios as either performers, programme contributors or audiences. You also need to consider what adjustments you might need to make to your programmes and supporting materials.

Adjustments include:

When determining what is "reasonable" the following can be taken into consideration:

There is no definitive list of adjustments because they need to be tailored to the individual's needs and the specific circumstances.

For further details on UK Law see www.drc.gov.uk

For further details on EU Law see http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/fundamental_rights/legis/legln_en.htm

For further details on UN Conventions see http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/index.html