UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy used her first appearance at the Royal Television Society's annual conference to criticise the TV industry as “centralised” and “exclusive”.
“For all the efforts of many of you in this room, we should all be ashamed because television is one of the most central and exclusive industries in the UK. Because who tells the story determines the story that is told,” she told the conference, which included TV industry executives including Big Talk CEO Kenton Allen and PACT CEO John McVey.
In her speech, Nandi urged executives to commission content “from every part of the country – towns and villages as well as major cities – why not?”
“Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. If you move jobs, people and content, but the heads of departments and commissioners are still in an office in London, do something about it.”
Nandy also pointed to the low proportion of working-class people on TV, a topic also discussed at the Edinburgh TV Festival last month in a keynote address by writer James Graham.
“Frankly, if you don’t know why the film industry is drawn to the beauty of Sunderland, or why the arts sector is thriving in Bradford, or the television potential of the Welsh Valleys, then you’ve probably never been there,” Nandy said. “And you have no right to call yourself a public service broadcaster.”
Earlier in the conference, Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon discussed the difficulty of staff moving to Leeds after the channel moved its headquarters there from London in 2020. Mahon said many staff had roots in London, making it difficult to move their families across the country.
Nandy, who was appointed culture secretary in July after Labour won the general election, is the 12th person to hold the post in the past 11 years.
She is the MP for Wigan in northern England and has never worked in the media, although her mother was a television producer.
