Off target

Some pretty poor diversity stats have been uncovered by Ofcom, slicing the UK radio industry - public service and commercial. It doesn't cover absolutely all operators, but is based on 9,000 employees working in 16 organisations with more than 20 employees, inlcuding the BBC, Bauer, and Global.

Overall, people from ethnic minority groups make up 6% of the industry, and also 6% of senior management positions – the UK population average is 14%. Disability data is missing for 38% of the radio industry’s workforce - those that did report figures show that 5% of employees say they are disabled, compared to 18% of the UK population.

Although representation of women across radio is in line with the UK population (51%), women are under-represented at senior levels, where 62% of senior managers are male, rising to 81% at Board level.  53% of commercial radio employees are female, dropping to 49% at the BBC.