One of the questions at this year's Children's Media Conference was about the lack of disabled representation on children's TV.

Anna Home agreed with the questioner that more needs to be done. She mentioned that, in the distant past, there was a BBC programme specifically for deaf children, but nowadays it's felt important to avoid ghettoising kids. Anna said that drama is a very good way of bringing in more diversity.

Alice Webb, Director of BBC Children's told the CMC that she was very proud of what the BBC is doing on TV: "26% of portrayal on CBBC & CBeebies are of diverse characters."

Alice Webb: I think it's right that we look at the whole range of diversity, not just disability. I think we cover that with LGBT, and, as I say, we cover 26%. I don't think that we need to do any more in terms of measuring individual elements because we cover it all.

Steve Hewlett: Except that the overall figure hides a multitude of sins, doesn't it potentially? Especially if you're disabled?

Alice Webb: Yeah. And I'll look to the guys across the piece in terms of how we break that down. I don't exactly ... I'm very happy to get those figures out.

More recently, a piece appeared in The Guardian entitled Children's TV pretends disability doesn't exist. The journalist, Tim Smedley, believes that it's mainly the commercial TV channels, rather than the BBC, which are at fault. I did ask Mr Smedley whether he'd also investigated the lack of LGB portrayal on children's TV, but failed to get a response.

Children's Media Conference 2014

The Conference begins this Wednesday, 2nd July.

BAFTA Award winning drama, ‘The Dumping Ground’, continues to resonate with its young audience. Or at least that's what the website says about a conference session entitled BAFTA Creative Masterclass: Laying Foundations for The Dumping Ground. The panel have been asked to examine the programme's "winning formula" by talking about emotional truth, moral and editorial responsibility, and on screen diversity, with reference to specific case studies, including gay adoption and racism.

Presumably the "gay adoption" case study will look at episode 5 from the first series: What Would Gus Want? The episode has been discussed by Newsround Blog on a few occasions, including 26th, 29th and 30th January 2013.

Lesbian couple Ronnie and Dawn (foreground)
Some points the CMC panel might like to consider:

1) Children's programmes which deal with gay themes are extremely rare.

2) The words 'gay' and 'lesbian' were used more than a dozen times in that episode. Those words are never heard on other kids' dramas or, for that matter, on other episodes of The Dumping Ground.

3) It was quite unfortunate that such 'loopy' lesbian characters were portrayed in the episode - all the more so in view of the scarcity of other lesbian and gay portrayal on kids' TV.

4) The arguments against prejudice were made by children, none of whom identified as gay. The result is that, in contrast to the racism storyline, we didn't get to see the hurt caused to children themselves as a result of homophobic attitudes.

5) The BBC children's department is refusing to converse on matters of fair portrayal and representation.

Hundreds of thousands of children grow up in Britain with the realisation they're not primarily attracted to the opposite sex. Such kids might well feel bad about themselves, especially if they're bullied, or if they hear homophobic language at school.

The BBC used to state its purpose is "to enrich the life of every person in the UK with programmes that inform, educate and entertain." That purpose is all very well. But the aim is not achievable unless people see their own lives and feelings represented. And that is something the BBC's children's department has failed to do. In fact CBBC's overwhelmingly heteronormative programming could easily alienate gay kids and do more harm than good.

From The Next Step - kids being fed a diet of heteronomativity
Thankfully some people are making a stand.

Despite the CBBC reality series School for Stars only mentioning straight relationships, former pupil of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, Layton Williams, believes a substantial number of kids at the school are gay. He bravely spoke about his experiences at last year's Stonewall Education for All conference.


Layton Williams gives a keynote address at Stonewall's 2013 Education for All conference
Another hopeful sign was Children's Media Conference debate on the need for inclusion.

Children's Media Conference 2013

The Children's Media Conference begins in Sheffield very shortly. And as well as the usual stuff, this year's Conference will feature a session looking at whether children's media are really reflecting the diversity of society when it comes to the inclusion of gay and lesbian characters. Amongst those taking part in the discussion will be Mark Jennett, author of the influential Stand Up For Us guidance, which tackles homophobia and homophobic bullying in schools. The session's host/moderator is Julian Scott - former BBC Executive Producer and now CEO of Purple Pictures.

So does children's media reflect the diversity of society?

In fact BBC children's TV first included gay characters over 20 years ago. And BBC children's drama was certainly reflecting diversity when Julian Scott was the Executive Producer of Byker Grove. In this clip from Byker Grove (series 16 episode 15 - October 2004) Bradley comes out to Sadie, his long-term girlfriend.


From Byker Grove (S16E15 - October 2004)

Later he has a heart to heart with her about his sexual orientation. He has to endure a certain amount of homophobia from others at the Grove, but eventually is accepted and meets his soulmate, Nathan.

Bradley & Nathan (S17E20 - November 2005)

The BBC axed Byker Grove in 2006, much to the exasperation of its audience. Since then not one single BBC children's drama has featured a specifically teenage lesbian, gay or bisexual character. A recent episode of The Dumping Ground did include a middle-aged lesbian couple, but the two came across as a bit loopy - hardly the sort of portrayal needed when there are no other LGB characters on children's TV.

Significant opportunities have been missed. Why, for example, did CBBC choose to portray Leonardo da Vinci as essentially heterosexual? And why, so close to his centenary, wasn't the brilliant Alan Turing selected to be one of the ten historical individuals featured in the Absolute Genius series?

The sad truth is that, contrary to widespread belief, there is a lot of homophobia in the media/showbiz world and that prejudice has been in the ascendant over the last few years. A determined effort will be needed to turn children's TV around. We've seen plenty of straight heroes. Equity demands that we see realistic and proportionate representation of our diverse society.

Christmas is one of the main religious celebrations in Britain, as well as around the world. But last Christmas, as regular Newsround Blog readers know, the Catholic church and the BBC conspired to misappropriate the festival in order to spread a hateful and deceitful message of discrimination against a minority.

So how did the BBC make up for it? Plenty of coverage of Pride in London yesterday perhaps? Well, actually it wasn't covered on the main BBC One news at all - but there was this ten second report on the BBC One local news in the afternoon. It was the last story before the weather forecast, and looked like it was more or less intended to comply with the recently introduced homophobic laws in Russia -

BBC One (London region) - Pride report on 29th June 2013

ITV London had a much better local news report -

ITV (London region) - Pride report on 29th June 2013

Making children's media inclusive of sexual orientation is one of the themes at this year's Children's Media Conference. And now that BBC Children's TV is based in Salford, there'll be no excuse for Newsround not to cover Pride Manchester in August.

The Children's Media Conference programme has now been published. The session on LGBT-inclusion, mentioned in my blog last Sunday, has been scheduled to take place on Day 2 - Thursday 4th July 2013 at 5.10pm