New Plans for the BBC's Future Include a New Commitment to Diversity, and the iPlayer Requiring a TV Licence

15% of leading roles to go to people of colour, and half of leading roles to women, by the year 2020.

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Despite the rise of Netflix, Amazon and everything else, the BBC iPlayer still remains one of the strongest streaming services out there. The BBC produces loads of great original content, as well as films and sport, and it’s all available without a subscription.

That is going to change, however. The new white paper for the future of the BBC, unveiled in parliament today,  states that the loophole allowing people without a TV license to watch iPlayer legally will be closed. With more and more viewers changing their TV habits to watching on-demand — because let’s face it, only old people watch regular TV when it’s actually on these days — it was probably only a matter of time before this happened.

The paper also says that the BBC will have a new obligation to be more diverse, with 15% of main roles going to people of colour and half of leading roles going to women by the year 2020. This follows a high profile campaign to improve the amount of non-white faces on British TV, including Idris Elba speaking at Westminster and Lenny Henry’s speech at last week’s BAFTAs.

Labour MP David Lammy praised the new diversity strategy on Twitter:

[via Guardian & Independent]

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