LGBTQ+ and ethnic minority communities 'overrepresented on TV', say half of Brits

Almost half of UK viewers think that LGBTQ+ and ethnic minority communities are overrepresented on TV, a survey has found.

YouGov polled attitudes to diversity representation in TV and found that 44% of British people believe that LGBTQ+ people are represented more on TV than in the general population, while 45% said the same about ethnic minorities.

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Just 26% of people surveyed said that they felt ethnic minorities were underrepresented on TV, and more people in the UK shared the overrepresentation opinions than those in France, Italy, Spain, Chile, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, who were also surveyed.

While LGBTQ+ storylines have featured in hit shows such as Netflix's Heartstopper and Channel 4's It's A Sin recently, screenwriter Russell T Davies, who also wrote Queer As Folk, Cucumber and Banana, has shared the struggles he still faces.

He revealed that it took five years to find a broadcaster who would make It's A Sin, a drama about the Aids epidemic which starred Olly Alexander, and told The Hollywood Reporter there was one scene he had refused to write.

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Davies said: "I was told at one channel, 'What if it starts on an Aids ward in say, 1990 or 1992, with the machines and people dying, and then went, 10 years earlier…'

"I thought that was unbelievably crass and literally refused to do it. My producer said, 'I know you don’t like that scene. If you just type it out, if you just type one page of that, it might get made'. I’d rather die than type that page.

"It’s the wrong way to tell it. There was a lot of nonsense like that."

Meanwhile, this year's Baftas was slapped with the same #sowhite criticism as recent Oscars ceremonies when not a single non-white person was presented with an award at the event last month, despite the nominations having been some of the most diverse in Bafta history.

The YouGov survey also found that 60% of those surveyed believe that obese people are underrepresented on TV.