• Some 14% of BBC staff went to independent schools against 7% more widely
• Ofcom said more than six out of ten were raised in well-off professional families
• The BBC said: ‘This is partial data that doesn’t reflect the whole of the BBC’
• Ofcom said findings were based on information from 8,370 BBC employees

Daily Mail – Sept 19, 2019

Staff at the BBC are twice as likely to have been privately-educated as the rest of the population, a watchdog report said yesterday.

Some 14 per cent of the BBC’s workforce went to independent schools, against 7 per cent more widely.

The analysis by the Ofcom media regulator also said more than six out of ten BBC staff were brought up in well-off professional families – again nearly twice the share of people from the best-educated and best-paid backgrounds found among the population as a whole.

The BBC and Viacom, which owns Channel 5 among other stations, were the only two broadcasters to give Ofcom details of the schooling of its staff.

Ofcom chief Sharon White said: ‘We want a TV industry where differences are celebrated, and the door is open to all.’

The Ofcom breakdown found lesbians, gays and bisexuals were well represented in TV – 7 per cent of BBC employees say they are lesbian, gay or bisexual, against 2 per cent of the wider population.

The BBC said: ‘This is partial data that doesn’t reflect the whole of the BBC. Overall more than 80 per cent of our workforce and 75 per cent of our leaders were educated in state schools, and the BBC is more diverse than it has ever been.’

Ofcom said its findings were based on information from 8,370 BBC employees – 60 per cent of all its staff.

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