the case in wales and parts of south—western england. some quite heavy rain here affecting coastal areas, but particularly around wales. some of that rain also moving into the midlands through the second half of the day. quite fresh in the north, only 12 degrees in aberdeen. at least it is dry here with some sunshine. 22 in the south this evening. this rain is very slow moving, quite a compact area of rain affecting wales and parts of the midlands through the night. dry tonight across scotland and northern ireland, around 6—10 celsius. still mild in the south at around 1a. so another cloudy and damp, if not wet at times, picture in the south—west of the uk on monday. some of that rain will move around the irish sea as well, but generally speaking the north, east and the far south remains dry through monday. goodbye!

hello this is bbc news. the headlines... emma raducanu makes history at the us open, beating leylah fernandez to become the first british woman to win a grand slam singles final in 44 years. the queen is among those congratulating the teenager following her stunning victory in new york, just months after finishing her a—levels. the uk's health secretary says the government won't introduce vaccine passports in england, ahead of plans to protect the nhs from rising covid cases this winter. the trade union congress warns that up to 660,000 jobs could be at risk, if the uk fails to reach net zero carbon emissions as quickly as other countries. the anti—immigration hungarian prime minister, viktor 0rban, meets pope francis in budapest. now on bbc news...it�*s

the media show, with ros atkins. hello. welcome to the media show. in a moment, we're going to talk about channel 4. its new headquarters in leeds havejust opened, and the government's consultation on whether to privatise it is into the final straight. we'll hear the case for privatisation from a former channel 5 ceo, and if you're wondering whether any of this has anything to do with the telly you watch, well, we'll unpack that, too. first, though, let's talk to jack thorne who is an acclaimed screenwriter who's worked on his dark materials, shameless and skins among many others. and at this year's edinburgh tv festival he gave mctaggart lecture which is one of the most high—profile moments for the tv industry and in that, jack thorne was blunt,

telling the audience tv has failed disabled people utterly and totally. jack, welcome to the media show. i wonder if you could explain to us in more detail why you came to that stark conclusion about the state of the tv industry? primarily because it's true. and i think that the argument must be broken down into three parts. one is that if you look at figures for representation, disabled people are chronically underrepresented. you know, 20% of our population are disabled and yet only 8.2% of on—screen talent are disabled. 5.4% of people working behind the screens, and if you look at the executive level, it goes right down to 3.6%, so there is a real problem in terms of disabled people being employed within the industry. the second thing, and related to that is the stories that are told about disability are few and far between. that i can only think of a handful of shows in my lifetime and it is very hard to get

those disabled stories told. i've been trying for years to tell disabled stories on conventional drama budgets and every time i've been able to tell a disabled story on tv it's been with a reduced budget because that's the only way of doing it. and we need to be elevated and we need to be put into the mainstream and the reason why, and this was i think the reason why this speech belonged this year is that i think that what covid showed — beyond anything else is that ableism is rife in our country and the fact that disabled people were shut out of conversations and ignored in the statistics as to how many deaths were put into different columns, how many disabled deaths,

those with underlying health conditions were sort of relegated out of mainstream statistics and if you look at care homes and disabled people in those homes there was a massive over proportion of disabled deaths of the first 100,000 covid deaths 61,000 were disabled. and then the third thing, and the, sort of, the thing that i'm particularly aiming at is that our spaces in which we make our work are inaccessible and that disabled people cannot make shows because there is frequently huge barriers to them being able to get into the spaces where we make our work. well, jack, let's work through some of the issues you raised in this speech with the help of some people who i know you know. an actor who plays izzy armstrong in coronation street and is the co—founder of triple c which runs disabled artist networking community. we also have briony arnold, drama producer and co—director of the deaf and disabled people in tv organisation. and then from the creative diversity network deborah williams

is with us and the cdn works across tv broadcasting to promote equality and diversity. i know you all paid close attention to jack's speech. did it resonate with you? did it describe a world you recognise, briony? 100%. it was startling and i messaged jack straight afterwards and said i was actually in tears because it resonated so much. and that's the key problem. that is the key issue. i'm a disabled wheelchair user, i'm a drama producer but, my god, they have not made it easy for me to get where i am. it's not been handed to me on a silver platter, that's for sure. and in terms of access i fundamentally agree with jack. there is no access. it has been made fundamentally difficult for me to get anywhere and to do myjob. in fact, i've had to people turn to me and tell me,

"i don't think you should do producing. should work on television. "you won't be able to get on the locations "you won't be able to work on the sets." it is only through tenacity and my own will that i have gone, you know what, watch me. i have had to be manhandled. i've had to around in order to get to locations. i have to put my humility to one side, in a way. i have to allow people to help me in ways that i don't wish to be helped. i have had toilet situations where i've had to physically be manhandled into a toilet and bum across urine—covered floor in order to be able to gain access a facility on a set because i was the only one available to me — the next one was miles away because we were in the middle of nowhere. but more than that it's about attitude. it is about people believing and seeing something that they think they understand when actually they don't. and it's about corresponding and talking to people like myself, and so many others that are amazing in this industry about what we can actually achieve

and what we can actually do. the problem is, there's a heck of a lot of prejudice we have to fight against to get there. if it is your experience as a producer and jack's experience as a screenwriter, what about you as an actor? very much the same. i spent most of my early career being auditionedl in leicester square, i in corridors, outside, having a mat put down in a - disabled toilet as my green room. ijobs and auditions being taking offl me once they realised i was disabled because it didn't match my cv. just peoples assumptions, really. so the prejudice, the fact that you're always - the person who goes in and has to make it all right with everybody to be all right with you. - it's that continual fight. it is notjust like someone going | in and doing the job for the firstj time — we all get nervous on our first day of a job —| you then have to go in _ and an advocate for your community and make everyone else comfortable. you have to advocate for your own access. i and that always makes you feel

sometimes like a problem - or you become this issue - whereas actually, if everywhere, like jack's saying, is accessible - and access was thought through you'd just be able to go on and do yourjob to your best - and that's where it's exciting. that is where disabled people, we are very solution focused . as people and therefore we are very creative and actually _ when disability is seeping - through into the media people get excited about it because it is - creatively interesting and exciting. and that's what i think's also| missing is that people see us as a less and actually we add to a situation. _ we're one in five people, _ so if you took 20% of your team out, you're missing 20% of the voices l and that usually that means you're missing out on ideas. not that this should be yourjob any more than it is anyone else's but i wonder, all four of you, when you look at these experiences playing out and you have them yourself, how do you explain those to everyone that you're telling about them?

why do you think they're happening, given, i don't suppose many of you colleagues would be going to work actively wanting to make your life difficult, so why do we think it is being made so difficult? deborah, what's your view of that? i would say that the work we do at cdn is very much research—based we look at evidence and we have done surveys and our work and other peoples work show is there is a great level of ignorance and a level of fear so instead of embracing that in finding ways to talk about that honestly and openly, people ignore it and pretend it's not happening so, so if you don't employ a disabled person, then you haven't got to have a conversation about disability. sorry to interrupt but the word fear there. itjumped out to me. help me understand more what you mean about that and i'd be interested to hear more from the other three as well. does the issue of fear come into this? i think fear is interesting

because it is not a word... it's a word that has come out of our research from within the industry that they're afraid that if they say something it's the wrong thing or if they do something it's the wrong thing and they're going to get called out on it. and that has been screaming loud and clear from our research over the last three years. and i want to again hold that stat, 5.4% of people in broadcasting are disabled in off—screen roles. 20% of the population is disabled. and that is enormous. that tells you that people are not experiencing disability in day—to—day life and working with disabled people, living with disabled people. which means that when you come into a closed environment, which a work environment is, and especially if that's on location or in studio, within our industry, you are looking at something that you don't know. that you do not understand. that you are fearful of. and you do not have time to work that through as an individual so the short cut is to ignore it. jack, let's bring you in.

there's not much for me to say other than what they've already said, but they speak much better than i do about this. thus the thing about the mctaggart lecture. i was given this platform but really i was speaking on behalf of a community and that's all i tried to do and all three of these people actually read the speech before i did it it and all three gave notes on how to get the speech as strong as can be and there is a very big reason to be angry here. that the cdn set this target with broadcasters of doubling disability by this year. in fact delayed a year by covid. and there was just massive, massive failures that instead of the sort of 5%, 10% incremental kleap that we needed there was 0.9%. tv is claiming that it is opening its arms and it's claiming

that's changing and it's not. it's just not. in your speech you directly address that and say that disability is the forgotten diversity, the one that everyone leaves out of speeches. briony, presumably you would agree with that. wholeheartedly. it is important we raise any diverse group because the problem with the media industry is its full of white homogenous cis men and we want to make sure that we are telling created diverse we need to have a diverse group of people behind the camera writing, creating, finding those stories but also telling the stories in front of the camera and that's why we need to see those faces. when i was growing up, i didn't see people like myself, and it's so important for any child, whether they are black, white, disabled, asian, trans, to see themselves reflected back on screen.

process and from the people behind the screens as well, implementing those stories. and like jack said, he's been struggling to get their stories told and this is jack thorne! i would add to that. the implication of has television utterly failed television utterly failed disabled people. yes. television has because it lacks ambition and imagination about the possibility of what disabled people can do and who disabled people are and it is a simple as that. if you live in a silo within a genre or within the world in which you are working and your understanding of any particular group is limited then that is what you seek to replicate and if you do not see ambition and authority and leadership and humour in disability and disabled people, then you're not going to look for any of that. never mind the drama of life. you know, life isn't sad, as a disabled person. it isn't miserable.

and as you're saying that i'm thinking of another quote from jack's speech in which he said the disabled stories need to be told and when they are told they need to be told with disabled people. i wonder, all of you, how you would like the broadcast industry to go about doing whatjack is recommending? do you prefer quotas, do you prefer a policy commitments? do you prefer culture change programmes. what do you think are the necessary tools to use in order to deliver on the vision that jack set out? all of the above, probably. just to get us started. and just take a leap. take a risk. nobody knows all the answers but it isjust really easy. just talk to disabled people because as a disabled person is awful to see somebody represent you and tell your stories that's it's not true and perpetuating those myths. in our society now, there's myths are so archaic and out of date.

we live in a society where we it is ok for the news to keep going, "it'sjust those with underlying health conditions "that are going to die." why make us less than any other human being? it is because our stories are not reported in the news. put us in every agenda, every agenda you have. make sure that disability is there and whether it fits in and if you're worried about to go and talk to a disabled person. we get that it can be quite fearful but we are there. we can help you. how you view how coronation street has told the story of your character through the pandemic? they've done something utterly ground—breaking and, you know, they'd taken reasonable adjustments and made them work. do you know what i mean? you know, they filmed me at home because i was shielding, and i stillam. and, you know, that shows that if you can do it on a television show you can do it on anything

in life and thus, the media really leads and we are portraying different ways of doing that and coronation street have been phenomenal for me. we have got it wheelchair accessible all around the streets which makes it easier for older people and people carrying heavy things. people don't realise that access isn'tjust for the disabled people, because it makes life better everywhere and for coronation street to tell that story, because i think they're the only one who has told that story — other than jack's astounding drama which is coming up, which has told the story of how disabled people are doing in covid. we're one in five people. why are we being so excluded? you mentioned jack's new drama you have a couple coming up, the first of which briony has been involved in as well. does this mean that at least some things are improving, that it is easier to get commissions and when you do start work that experience is at least improving where it was? well, yes, to some degree. certainly there are commitments that

have been made post—edinburgh are really, really impressive in that respect. when barbara met alan was actually commissioned by history, not by drama so we had to go in via a different door and it was a really, really joyful experience and one perhaps briony won't blow her own trumpet but it is kind of incredible because it was accessible all the way up and there were members of the crew in every branch. and it was the first time i'd experienced that and it was amazing. she wrote a disability crib sheet that every time there was a mail out about the show, it was on it. it was amazing. what was on it? basically, because we are working with crew members that hadn't worked with anybody from the disabled community before we wanted to make sure the dos and don'ts. so it is basically to take away the fear about how to perhaps

approach someone in a wheelchair. ie don'tjust go and grab their wheelchair. it might sound really obvious but you would be surprised. you know, it'sjust a general commitment to saying, look, we are here as employees as well. we are here to make a great programme but we also want to take away some of the question marks and the myths as well and to reassure people. but it was incredibly joyful experience. we got to catch the most incredible cast of disabled actors as well. lots of whom have not done much or any tv work, and to find these people was just extraordinary, and i'm not going to lie, i cried like a baby when we were filming one particular scene because i was in a room full of disabled people who were doing something quite monumental and joyful and purposeful and that's such a rarity in our industry and, yeah, it really got to me. well, i can understand why. jack, just before we finish this discussion, you gave this, as i said, very blunt speech that demanded the industry's attention. i wonder what the reaction was from the big guns within the industry when they

heard that message from you? very, very good. very positive. i mean, the commitments from the bbc and netflix to making disabled shows was huge. channel 4 made a similar commitment. sky is building on making a commitment now. we haven't heard from channel 5 but hopefully we will. and with that, hopefully change will happen because people will become empowered and people will become used to seeing disabled people on screen. we will leave it there for the moment. thank you very much indeed and listening to all of that is david edelstein, former channel five ceo. from a director of programmes at bskyb. david, we're going to talk about channel 4 and possible privatisation a moment. but you held those senior roles within uk broadcasting. i wonder if, you feel, looking back, disability representation was given

the representation it wanted? it was well behind other minority diversities. the most successful lobby was from the deaf broadcasting council, getting subtitles and audio description. it took a while for the broadcasters and the regulators to get there but it is now a requirement for broadcasters to have virtually all their programming subtitled, and 10% of it audio description. so, with the next wave of diversity challenge was from ethnic minority representation and all the broadcasters made commitments. they have been hugely successful. with disability, it's, kind of, three—dimensional. there's on—screen, behind the screen, and then what is the screen doing? so i watch corrie and i'm impressed that her character's

storyline is not necessarily based on disability. she has other storylines as well. when i watch life by mike bartlett on the bbc, there was a character, melissa johns was playing a mainstream character. the fact that she was disabled was completely uncommented on. the first drama i ever commissioned was from a disabled writer, but he didn't write anything about disability, because he wanted to write about the politics of northern ireland. so it's multidimensional issues which has had less attention than it needs. a lot of attention in the last few weeks because disability representation was given a huge, if temporary boost by channel 4's coverage of the paralympics. but now we have this morning from channel 4 that it won't be able to do anything like that level of coverage again

if it's privatised. and that issue, the possible privatisation of channel 4, is coming into sharper focus. next week, the government's consultation on this closes. a decision will follow in months, we think. and we know where channel 4 stands. it ceo spoke to the media show injune. we don't cost the taxpayer anything at all. we take money commercially from advertisers, we don't make a profit. we take all that money, about £1 billion of revenue a year, and we recycle it into small and medium businesses across the uk. that argument was reiterated again as channel 4 opened its new headquarters in leeds this week, but david, you disagree with it as you made clear in a statement of the house of lords committee this week. why? well, most of it's completely untrue. there's no reason why the paralympics should disappearfrom channel 4 under private ownership. why would it?

it does very well in terms of audiences, it earns its keep, although, the guardian misreported. audio issue. we can give you the argument here. the programming director at channel 4 said, i just don't think there was any chance that a primarily profit driven channel 4 would invest anything like what we invest in trying to build up and celebrate the paralympics in the way we do, a purely profit—driven channel 4 would be a very different beast to the channel 4 that we know now. well, i hope it would be because i hope it would be a great deal would efficient and stop pumping money into some things. last year they cut £134 million out of its budget but boosted its numbers and its staff pay by a significant margin. there are now 912 employees of channel 4 earning an average of £100,000 a year each. so, the notion that the money

they earn goes into programming is clearly not true. clearly, if it was a private enterprise you would imagine that private enterprise would pay very well to secure the best talent. one moment, david. i'm just looking at some of the details from channel 4's annual report. streaming growth of 24% in digital up 11%. revenue forecast to exceed £1 billion for the first time. it doesn't sound like a business that has been particularly badly run. allow me. i have run a lot of commercial businesses and it is badly run. it has ten times as many people working in programming as, say, channel five. now and for the last 20 years. so when alex said it doesn't cost the taxpayer anything, it costs the taxpayer at least £75 million in wasted resources and payments. that wouldn't occur if it was run more efficiently, and if it were privately owned, and i have to say this.

the paralympics cost £7 million in 2012 and rather more in 2016 and a bit more this year. whoever owns channel 4 in 2024 will be running the paralympics because it makes a lot of commercial sense. clearly, channel 4 would dispute strongly that it is not efficiently run. i would ask you, though, a different question, though, david. can i ask you a different question? all the problems you raise here, that it's remit�*s not clear enough, that the remit�*s not being properly enforced by the regulator, that it's not efficient enough, why does privatisation sort any of those problems out? it seems to you've identified a problem in quite the solution that does not necessarily fit? because as because as soon as you enter into a contract with a private owner you can force them to commit to programming commitments which channel 4

will not commit to. so you are saying that a regulator that can't force a public service broadcaster now but could in the future do so with a private operation. no, no, it wouldn't be 0fcom that did it. it would be a government contract that did it. you know, a legal contract. at the moment, 0fcom has no power to discipline channel 4 when it blatantly ignores... well, 0fcom does have the ability to issue fines. when did they ever do it? it has done it. only for bbc, not for channel 4. jack thorne, let me they bring you in. why do you think this is a bad idea? i don't really understand the argument.

the argument seems to me that their salaries are a bit high at chnnel 4 and i don't think that is necessarily true and i don't really understand what it focuses not on what channel 4 has done historically which is made really good television. with a television that people want to watch. and we live in the age of if you can't attract international finance you are in trouble. it is very difficult to make shows. and that means that the local is being lost and we are constantly looking for global ideas and that means that shows that talk about our country, that talk about what makes our country interesting, that are focused on looking at the problems looking for global ideas and that means that shows that talk about our country, that talk about what makes our country interesting, that are focused on looking at the problems within our country, social realism, otherwise are lost. and it would be a tragedy. david disagrees with that and we will have to return to the subject for the moment. very much indeed. the consultation ends at 11:a5pm in the 14th so you still have time and then we wait for months, we think, until there is a decision. many thanks to all of my guests. the media show will be back at the same time next week but from me

and all of the media show team, for the moment, thank you for listening and goodbye. hello. well, a decent enough day for many of us today, but certainly not the case in wales and parts of south—western england. some quite heavy rain here affecting coastal areas, but particularly around wales. some of that rain also moving into the midlands through the second half of the day. quite fresh in the north, only 12 degrees in aberdeen. at least it is dry here with some sunshine. 22 in the south this evening. this rain is very slow moving, quite a compact area of rain affecting wales and parts of the midlands through the night. dry tonight across scotland and northern ireland, around 6—10 celsius. still mild in the south at around 1a. so another cloudy and damp, if not wet at times, picture in the south—west of the uk on monday. some of that rain will move around the irish sea as well, but generally speaking the north, east and the far south remains dry through monday. goodbye!

this is bbc news. i'm luxmy gopal. the headlines: emma raducanu makes history at the us open, beating leylah fernandez to become the first british woman to win a grand slam singles final in 44 years. the queen is among those congratulating the teenager following her stunning victory in new york, just months after finishing her a—levels. to have a note from her, i was extremely honoured and very grateful that she took notice of my tennis. i can't believe it, i'm maybe going to frame that letter or something. the uk's health secretary says the government won't introduce vaccine passports in england, ahead of plans to protect the nhs from rising covid cases this winter. what i can say is we have looked at it properly and, while we should keep it in reserve as a potential option,

i am pleased to say we will not be going ahead with plans