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UK’s Top TV Shows ‘Downplaying Disability’

TV bosses are doing disabled people a disservice by underrepresenting them in many of Britain’s most popular shows, new research can reveal.

While top-rated programmes like Eastenders, Coronation Street and Killing Eve reflect UK diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, they fall way short when it comes to portraying disabled characters, according to streaming service WatchTVAbroad.com.

Their Diversity in UK TV study analysed the main casts of ten of the most popular shows on terrestrial channels to see how closely they reflect British society1. These included dramas, soap operas and comedy series where characters had been specifically created.

The shows chosen were: Eastenders, Coronation Street, All Creatures Great and Small, Killing Eve, Line of Duty, Vigil, Gavin and Stacey, Peaky Blinders, Derry Girls and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Of the ten programmes studied, six had no disabled characters in their regular cast and only Coronation Street had more than one. An average of 1.6% of the characters had a disability, compared with 21.7% of the UK population2.

By comparison, the shows revealed far more diversity in the ethnicity and sexuality of its cast.

Ethnic minority characters made up 16.5% of the roles depicted, slightly above the 13% of the UK population who identify as being from this background3. Crime drama Line of Duty had the highest proportion of characters from an ethnic minority background - at 28.1% - while comedies Gavin and Stacey, Derry Girls and Mrs Brown’s Boys all featured an all-white main cast.

Across the shows, 6.5% of the characters were part of the LGBTQI+ community, more than twice the 3.1% of people who openly identify as these sexual and gender identities in the UK4. Nearly a quarter (22.2%) of the characters in hit drama Killing Eve were explicitly LGBTQI+, while All Creatures Great and Small and Peaky Blinders featured no characters from this community.

Carolina Beltramo, TV analyst at WatchTVAbroad.com comments:
“While UK TV shows have improved the representation of minorities on our screens, this research shows a glaring diversity gap around the portrayal of disabled people.

“As great strides have been made on sexuality and ethnicity, those with a disability have been kept away from the stalls of Albert Square, hidden from Mrs Brown’s house, and excluded completely from Gavin and Stacey’s friends in Billericay and Barry Island.

“While we accept that not all disabilities are visible, the fact ten times more people in the UK consider themselves disabled than are seen in these influential hit shows is a huge and damning discrepancy.

“TV producers and writers should be doing more to address this issue. Only then can they claim to make programmes truly representative of their viewers.”

Table: WatchTVAbroad.com Diversity in UK TV Study

Show	Total characters	Male	Female	Ethnic minority characters	LGBTQI+ characters	Disabled characters
Eastenders	79	37 (46.8%)	42 (53.2%)	18 (22.8%)	7 (8.8%)	1 (1.2%)
Coronation St	76	37 (48.7%)	39 (51.3%)	14 (18.4%)	5 (6.6%)	2 (2.6%)
All Creatures Great and Small	15	8 (53.3%)	7 (46.7%)	1 (6.7%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Killing Eve	9	4 (44.4%)	5 (55.6%)	2 (22.2%)	2 (22.2%)	0 (0%)
Line of Duty	32	16 (50%)	16 (50%)	9 (28.1%)	1 (3.1%)	1 (3.1%)
Vigil	26	15 (57.7%)	11 (42.3%)	5 (19.3%)	2 (7.7%)	0 (0%)
Gavin and Stacey	13	7 (53.8%)	6 (46.2%)	0 (0%)	1 (7.7%)	0 (0%)
Peaky Blinders	23	16 (69.6%)	7 (30.4%)	2 (8.7%)	0 (0%)	1 (4.3%)
Mrs Brown’s Boys	19	11 (57.9%)	8 (42.1%)	0 (0%)	1 (5.2%)	0 (0%)
Derry Girls	17	4 (23.5%)	13 (76.5%)	0 (0%)	1 (5.9%)	0 (0%)
Total	309	155 (50.2%)	154 (49.8%)	51 (16.5%)	20 (6.5%)	5 (1.6%)
Percentage of UK population		49.3%	50.5%	13%	2.7%	21.7%