BBC's DG wanted half of local radio presenters on breakfast shows to be women within a year. We produced a development scheme to embrace this.
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Action
In 2013 the Director of the BBC, Tony Hall announced that by the end of 2014 he wanted half of all Local Radio presenters on breakfast shows to be women. Although half the workforce in Local Radio were female, only 25% of broadcast hours were presented by women.
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Solution
Natasha Maw was engaged to work with a pool of existing female presenters, rather than recruit new staff, to help develop and support them with the aim of their promotion to higher profile programmes or onto bigger stations. She matched them with well-known network female presenters in conjunction with training days over the course of 12 months. Progress was monitored by using qualitative and quantative methods.
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Engagement
This was one of the first initiatives at the BBC to actively promote and support female presenters to greater representation on air and was deemed highly successful. Not only was the quota of 50% female representation met for presentation on breakfast shows, but participants reported significantly increased levels of confidence, networking skills and active career development.