Making Television, Making Class: What's On? A report on class inequality in UK TV drama

UK television drama is undergoing rapid change: commissioning is increasingly risk-averse, employment is more precarious, and production is more geographically dispersed. In this environment, questions of who gets to make television - and whose lives are treated as credible on screen - are central to the long-term resilience and legitimacy of the UK screen sector. This report presents findings from the AHRC-funded project What’s on? Rethinking class in the television industry (2023–2026), conducted in partnership with the BBC and Channel 4. It addresses one of the most persistent and least resolved forms of inequality in UK television: social class.

The research combines two anonymised drama case studies, 52 interviews (plus 14 supplementary interviews), case study analysis, and four audience focus groups conducted between 2024 and 2025. It demonstrates that class inequality is reproduced structurally through informal hiring, freelance precarity, London-centred creative authority, and cultural gatekeeping, and intersects with race, gender and disability to compound exclusion. The report concludes with evidence-based recommendations for industry and policy, focusing on progression, retention, recruitment transparency, workforce sustainability, and regionally sustainable career pathways.