Sky promises to invest £10 million per year for the next three years to fight racism and promote diversity and inclusion across all its platforms. The company announced its aim to “improve black and minority ethnic representation at all levels”, “make a difference in communities impacted by racism”, and “use the power of Sky’s voice and platform to highlight racial injustice”. Sky wants to achieve this by creating more opportunities for the representation of ethnic minorities in the industry, building a more inclusive and diverse culture within the company, and supporting anti-racism non-profits, amongst other efforts.
Increasing representation
The company pledges to create a more diverse and inclusive culture, by ensuring better representation of ethnic minorities at all levels but especially at the level of senior leadership. The fund will cover the investment in the education of its managers and leaders to ensure they fully understand the diversity and inclusion issues many under-represented employees are facing. Sky promises to put in place targets to measure the progress of these investments. The broadcaster will create a Diversity Advisory Group, which “will be made up of independent external contributors and will advise Sky on how it can best deliver real and lasting change, both internally at Sky and externally in communities impacted by racism”, according to its website.
Helping communities affected by racism
Over several years, Sky aims to help black and other ethnic minorities that have been a victim of racial injustice, by making significant financial contributions towards charities fighting racism. Sky Group Chief Executive, Jeremy Darroch, has said:
“I have listened to the views of our colleagues at Sky. What I have heard loud and clear is that we can and should do more to support the fight against racial injustice. We stand with our black colleagues and today we are committing to do more to tackle racism, provide more support to communities impacted by racism, and create a more diverse and inclusive culture at Sky. To make changes that really matter we will spend much more time listening and taking advice from those who understand the issues. We will work together with our black and minority ethnic colleagues and with external advisors to support real change, and we will use the power of Sky’s voice and reach to highlight racial injustice in the UK and around the world.”
Sky becoming a platform to fight racial injustice
The UK TV broadcaster plans on creating more content that highlights the issues of racial injustice. It will start by making the documentary “Eight minutes and 46 seconds; the killing of George Floyd” available on Sky Documentaries, Sky One, Sky Witness, and Sky Atlantic on June 15. The documentary will also be available on Sky’s YouTube channel so that it reaches the widest audience possible. Sky will also introduce a series of collated content related to black injustice entitled ‘Black Lives Matter’ on its Sky Q platform.