Why is the BBC spending £80 million per year on diversity?

And that's its "minimum" spend

I honestly had no idea how prescriptive, patronising and ridiculous the BBC’s diversity guidelines are until I accidentally stumbled on them while researching my last piece:

BBC Talent: Meet the writers who tackle "Queerness", "intergenerational trauma" and "post-Brexit radicalisation"

Today I wanted to show you some of the things I’ve found. The main thing to convey is that the BBC’s diversity pages are headache central, in that, anyone wanting to receive BBC funding has to follow a whole load of very rigid guidelines, that treat humanity as a mathematical equation.

Just look at its page “Growing diverse production teams”…

… which stipulates that “For all new commissions from 4 September 2024”, production companies have “to commit to at least 25% of their production teams being from the following underrepresented groups”:

The BBC adds: “We ask that the 25% is made up of at least two of these three underrepresented groups. However, we are flexible in how the overall percentage is achieved”. Very considerate, and not at all reductive about humanity!