The promises UK broadcasters made after the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020 have not produced "embedded, structural change" in the television industry, according to the latest Diamond diversity report published on 28 July 2026 Deadline.

Paul Moore, chair of the Creative Diversity Network (CDN) — the body that compiles the annual Diamond reports — said representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people both on and off screen has "stalled or drifted backward" since broadcasters made those commitments more than five years ago. Moore is also the communications and corporate affairs chief at ITV.

The numbers tell a flat story. On-screen roles taken by Black, Asian and minority ethnic actors and presenters have plateaued at 23.2% since 2022. Off-screen representation fell by one percentage point to 13%, which sits below the 17.9% national workforce average. The proportion of non-white people in senior roles has dropped to 12% — the same level as 2019. In the last year the report covers, non-white people held only 10.9% of executive producer roles, the senior position that commissions and oversees a production.

Some areas moved in the other direction. Lead actors from non-white backgrounds reached 34.9%, almost double the national workforce average. Writers from non-white backgrounds represented 21.3% of the total. But those gains sit alongside broader stagnation: Diamond has been tracking UK television diversity data for nine years, and Moore says the overall picture shows flatlining progress.

Among the major UK-based networks, the report found that Paramount — owner of Channel 5, now branded as 5 — had the lowest proportion of contributions from Black, Asian and minority ethnic people. The BBC had the highest proportion of on-screen contributions from those groups, while Channel 4 led on off-screen representation.

For the people who work in television, the gap between the 2020 pledges and these figures is the practical question. A writers' room or a production crew either reflects the population it serves or it does not, and the data says that five years on, the industry is roughly where it started.

A change to how the data itself is collected is coming. Earlier in 2026, the CDN announced it was revamping the Diamond system to allow for improved reporting. Diamond 2.0 is scheduled to go live on 30 September 2026, at which point it will begin collecting fresh data under the new framework CDN. The previous Diamond reports, including "The Seventh Cut" published in 2024 and an interim "Seven Point Five Cut" report with an accompanying methodology document released in June 2025, will be superseded by the new system.

Nine years of measurement. One clear finding: the promises did not stick.