Promoting more diverse and inclusive workplaces in the audiovisual sector

European trade unions and employers organized a European roundtable on inclusion in the audiovisual sector on 30 April 2024 in Berlin. The roundtable was part of a 2-year EU-funded project aimed at improving the capacity of the industry to implement diversity policies.

The event in Berlin was the last roundtable in a series of four organized in 2023-2024. The first three roundtables examined concepts and definitions, as well as diversity monitoring tools. They also discussed intersectionality, DEI strategies, the educational pathways into the sector, and diversity on screen. Resources and reports form the previous roundtables are available online.

Good practices

During a first panel, European professionals shared good practices and their commitment to change the industry. Insights from the Observatorio de la Diversidad en los Medios Audiovisuales in Spain, the Collectif 50/50 in France, the public broadcaster WDR in Germany and Screen Producers Ireland allowed to address and discuss different key dimensions of diversity policies: the inclusion of professionals with disabilities, trans representation, diverse newsrooms and the need to counter stereotypes in portrayals, the impact of databases of professionals with diverse backgrounds and of mentoring programmes.

The second panel zoomed in on the situation in Germany. Thanks to the participation of key sector organizations such as Die Neuen deutschen Medienmacher*innen, ARD Degeto Film GmbH, Themis Vertrauensstelle e.V, concrete tools and transformation processes were discussed, without shying away from addressing the challenges often faced when adopting new protocols and new ways of working. Björn Bohning, CEO of Produktionsallianz highlighted the “permanent process” that is promoting diversity, declaring that “promoting diversity and inclusion requires other measures than just fighting discrimination”. Matthias von Fintel, Head of Media, Journalism and Film at ver.di added: “All of us want to contribute to more open productions and work environments. […] We need a real change that comes along with a change of point of view.”

What’s next?

The European social partners will soon enter a phase of negotiations of a European Framework of Actions on Diversity and Inclusion in the audiovisual sector; with the aim of setting shared goals and common objectives as well as putting forward recommendations to improve the capacity of the industry to implement and promote diversity policies.

They will hold a conference in Brussels on 19 November 2024 to conclude the project and present the state-of-play of the negotiations.

For more information about the project, to read the reports of the roundtables, watch online roundtables in replay, and consult the list of European resources collected in the course of the project, visit the website.

This project, cofounded by the EU is a joint initiative of all the social partners that compose the European Social Dialogue Committee in the audiovisual sector: the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Audiovisual Production association (CEPI), the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF); the Association of European Radios (AER); the Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe (ACT), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ); the International Federation of Actors (FIA), the International Federation of Musicians (FIM), and the Media, Entertainment & Arts sector of UNI Europa (EURO-MEI).