TV Industry Still has to go far on Disability

Birmingham's LGBTQIA radio station, Gorgeous FM, reports that disabled people working in the television industry report large barriers to their careers. The findings were compiled by the Lenny Henry Centre For Media Diversity at Birmingham City University, and found that eighty per cent of respondents found that their careers have been negatively impacted by their disability. The survey was conducted across multiple levels of role within the TV industry including executives, producers and managers. Marcus Ryder MBE from the Sir Lenny Henry Centre noted that the findings "demonstrates a shocking basic lack of understanding of people's legal rights, which is holding people's careers back”. Our own Terry Starr, reporting for ShoutOut said, “One way round the holding back of people's careers in the mainstream networks is to build our own disabled media to directly communicate with the wider communities. Already we have RNIB Radio for Blind People available on Freeview Channel 730, whilst online there is Able Radio, a national station run from disabled community projects in South Wales”.