The TV Foundation Announces 17 Founding Class Confident Organisations
Broadcasters and production companies join the movement to improve working class representation in the TV industry.
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| James Graham, Dramatist and Playwright | Shutterstock for the Edinburgh TV Festival |
Tuesday 27th January 2026
Published today, The TV Foundation announces the 17 founding Class Confident organisations. They have all applied to join the Class Confident movement to remove barriers for people from working class backgrounds to get into and stay in the TV industry.
The founding members are: All3Media, Banijay UK, BBC, BBC Studios, Channel 4, Fremantle UK, Hat Trick Productions, ITV, Multitude Media, Paramount, Purple Productions (part of Objective Media Group), South Shore, Studio Lambert, The Farm, The Garden (part of ITV Studios), XXIV Communications and Zinc Media Group.
Part of the ongoing work of The TV Foundation’s class and social equality working group, the Class Confident movement is a way to recognise and support organisations – big and small – that are innovating and leading the cultural shift we need to make the TV industry class confident.
To join, organisations must show how they are meeting the Class Confident Actions, a series of prompts to remove barriers for people from working class backgrounds to work in TV. The Actions were launched by The TV Foundation at the Edinburgh TV Festival 2025 and can be found on the TV Foundation website alongside details on how to the apply, for companies across the industry to get involved.
You don’t have to have all the answers to be a Class Confident organisation, but you do need to show that you have recognised the additional hurdles that class presents and you are committed to implementing change, as all founding member organisations have done in their application to the movement. We want industry professionals to feel confident they can have real conversations about class with these founding partners.
Working class audiences are TVs largest potential audience but this is not reflected in the TV industry workforce. The TV Foundation’s report Let’s Talk About Class: Appealing to the UK’s Largest Audience, found that nearly 1 in 4 people in senior TV roles have the cultural and economic advantages of a private school education, over three times higher than the 7.5% of the general population who are privately educated. Successful applicants will join a peer-learning network to share best practice and learn from the challenges they have faced. They will also benefit from discounted rates to the Edinburgh TV Festival 2026.
The TV Foundation is now inviting companies across the TV industry to apply to becoming Class Confident. The application form is available on the TV Foundation website. thetvfestival.com/tv-foundation/class-social-equality/
Gemma Bradshaw, Impact Director, The TV Foundation: “When we first started talking about working class voices in the industry it was a taboo topic. Now some of the biggest players in the industry are putting their hands up, ready to do more. We’re thrilled to see so many organisations already taking action to improve class representation and we’re keen to hear from more TV companies that want to join us. This is not a checklist or the end point; it’s the start of a movement to make the industry accessible to all.”
From Deadline:
British Broadcasters, Paramount & Super-Indies Sign Up For Class Confident Actions That Emerged From James Graham’s MacTaggart
EXCLUSIVE: The BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Paramount and major UK production groups have signed up to be the Edinburgh TV Foundation’s first tranche of Class Confident organizations.
The idea emerged from James Graham‘s 2024 MacTaggart address and crystallized last year when a series of Class Confident Actions were drawn up by the TV Foundation.
Banijay, All3Media, Fremantle and BBC Studios have signed up to show they are meeting the series of prompts to remove barriers for people from working class backgrounds to work in TV. The actions include putting class on the agenda of a company’s culture and leadership; bringing back job interviews in recruitment; levelling the playing field by paying the real living wage for entry level roles at the least; and supporting the next moves of staff with potentially longer contracts.
The aim of the actions is to improve the woefully poor landscape for working class people in the British TV industry. Recent research has found that nearly one in four people in senior TV roles have the cultural and economic advantages of a private school education, which is more than three times higher than the 7.5% of the general population who are privately educated.
Dear England creator Graham argued passionately for greater working class representation during his MacTaggart, claiming the industry was “squeamish about defining it, and as a result, we quite often still exclude it from industry measurements around diversity.”
“Taboo topic”
TV Foundation Impact Director Gemma Bradshaw said: “When we first started talking about working class voices in the industry it was a taboo topic. Now some of the biggest players in the industry are putting their hands up, ready to do more.”
She added: “We’re thrilled to see so many organisations already taking action to improve class representation and we’re keen to hear from more TV companies that want to join us. This is not a checklist or the end point; it’s the start of a movement to make the industry accessible to all.”
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