Exclusive: No BBCs on the BBC. Ben Bradshaw asks why

Yay! Starting the year with the good news that Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw has heard our woes and written to the communications watchdog Ofcom asking where all the Chinese are.

I've just seen the letter and it's a welcome sight. Apart from me presenting the occasional programme for BBC Radio 4 (two due this year), a smattering of barely visibles, occasional sightings of Alexa Chung and her frocks, and of course the lovely and highly visible Gok Wan, where are we?

I do possess the perfect face for radio, I know, but I'd like to see more presenters reflecting me on the telly. The British Chinese, including the British Born Chinese (BBCs), are after all the third largest ethnic minority in the UK. It's expected that we may hit the 400,000 mark in the 2011 census with up to another 100,000 students and "irregular workers".

It's long been observed that there are no Chinese in the BBC's flagship Eastenders series despite the history of London's Limehouse and Chinese sailors in the docklands. Hey, I was born in Hackney but I'm starting to feel that I never existed. I think they had a Fujianese DVD seller for a short while recently, as is if that represents us. Around where I live in north London there's an east Asian traffic warden (poor guy!), a Chinese-looking bus driver, not to mention solicitors, councillors and a wide array of professionals and business people.

I look with envy at the Americans with east Asian faces all over the place and occupying all sorts of media and entertainment niches. How often do we see an equivalent here? I can only think of Torchwood where colour-blind cross-racial casting gave us Toshiko Sato. OK, not Chinese, but at least on the same continent.

Exclusive to Madam Miaow Says, Bradshaw writes in his letter to Ofcom that he's now aware of:

... the low profile of the community in the worlds of culture and media and, in particular, broadcast content. ... the limited number of opportunities available to Chinese people attempting to find work in these areas. It is argued that Chinese characters appear infrequently in, for example, popular drama and that there are no Chinese newscasters or television journalists. It is further suggested that when Chinese characters are portrayed on television, film or theatre, they are often unfairly stereotyped. This is all balanced against the fact that the Chinese community constitutes a significant and sizeable ethnic group in the UK.

He also asks how the diversity requirements of section 264(6)(i) of the Communications Act is applied by public service broadcasters with reference to the Chinese community.

Casting directors please take note.

UPDATE: Spirit Warriors about to break the mould?

Exclusive: No BBCs on the BBC. Ben Bradshaw asks why

Yay! Starting the year with the good news that Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw has heard our woes and written to the communications watchdog Ofcom asking where all the Chinese are.

I've just seen the letter and it's a welcome sight. Apart from me presenting the occasional programme for BBC Radio 4 (two due this year), a smattering of barely visibles, occasional sightings of Alexa Chung and her frocks, and of course the lovely and highly visible Gok Wan, where are we?

I do possess the perfect face for radio, I know, but I'd like to see more presenters reflecting me on the telly. The British Chinese, including the British Born Chinese (BBCs), are after all the third largest ethnic minority in the UK. It's expected that we may hit the 400,000 mark in the 2011 census with up to another 100,000 students and "irregular workers".

It's long been observed that there are no Chinese in the BBC's flagship Eastenders series despite the history of London's Limehouse and Chinese sailors in the docklands. Hey, I was born in Hackney but I'm starting to feel that I never existed. I think they had a Fujianese DVD seller for a short while recently, as is if that represents us. Around where I live in north London there's an east Asian traffic warden (poor guy!), a Chinese-looking bus driver, not to mention solicitors, councillors and a wide array of professionals and business people.

I look with envy at the Americans with east Asian faces all over the place and occupying all sorts of media and entertainment niches. How often do we see an equivalent here? I can only think of Torchwood where colour-blind cross-racial casting gave us Toshiko Sato. OK, not Chinese, but at least on the same continent.

Exclusive to Madam Miaow Says, Bradshaw writes in his letter to Ofcom that he's now aware of:

... the low profile of the community in the worlds of culture and media and, in particular, broadcast content. ... the limited number of opportunities available to Chinese people attempting to find work in these areas. It is argued that Chinese characters appear infrequently in, for example, popular drama and that there are no Chinese newscasters or television journalists. It is further suggested that when Chinese characters are portrayed on television, film or theatre, they are often unfairly stereotyped. This is all balanced against the fact that the Chinese community constitutes a significant and sizeable ethnic group in the UK.

He also asks how the diversity requirements of section 264(6)(i) of the Communications Act is applied by public service broadcasters with reference to the Chinese community.

Casting directors please take note.

UPDATE: Spirit Warriors about to break the mould?

TV Channels Run Gaza Charity Appeal without BBC

In an unprecedented turn that goes some way to restoring my faith in people, ITV, Channel 4 and Five are to show a charity appeal for Gaza (due Monday) despite the BBC's shameful decision not to run the film.

We've all seen the horror of state of the art technology versus the equivalent of peashooters in a fish-in-a-barrel shooting spree. A conflict where Palestinian civilians, already run off their land and herded into a 25 mile strip (and when they call it a strip, they aren't kidding), have no-where to run as missiles, phosphorous and "flechettes" rain down on them.

Jonathan Miller's harrowing C4 News films, here, here and here from the battle-zone show us the results of "asymmetrical" warfare: 400 dead children, buildings into which the IDF have rammed families and then shelled them, gloating graffiti scrawled on the walls by the invading Israelis pledging death to all Palestinians.

A population already reeling from a two-year blockade, scant stocks of food and medicine incinerated in the UN compound, 1,400 dead Palestinians since the 2005 Israeli withdrawal, and now a thousand more in the run up to the Israeli elections, have been forgotten.

And the BBC refuses to air the Disaster Emergency Committee humanitarian appeal for aid to the Gazan civilians. Five now says the issue "transcends politics".

The BBC stands to the right of even our lousy government in this. One minister, Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, has urged the BBC to reconsider "in the light of the great human suffering still taking place in Gaza". And Ben Bradshaw says, "I'm afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally," and considers their excuses "inexplicable" and "completely feeble". While Liberal Democrat media spokesman Don Foster said the BBC's decision was "disgraceful".

Media Workers Against the War reports:

Israel has withdrawn its troops, tanks and bombers for now but says it will not lift the blockade which starves Gaza's population of food, water, fuel and essential medical supplies. The United Nations says that the aid now being allowed by Israel into Gaza is nowhere near enough to meet the basic needs of its people.

"The destruction in Gaza and the loss of the lives of over a thousand civilians and children, has shocked the world" as Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, made clear, when he saw the devastation for himself.

I watched Slumdog Millionaire the other day. One of the most upsetting scenes was the anti-Muslim pogrom where Salim and Jamal's mother is murdered by a mob intent on wiping them all out. The children have to run for their lives past burning people and incinerated houses, but where can they escape to? We weep at this and yet our brothers and sisters in Gaza have just gone through the same terrifying experience. Human beings lie in festering hospitals with no medicine, fuel, food or water. And the BBC denies them this most basic of help?

Give them humanitarian aid and stop selling arms to Israel.

Pix of Saturday's BBC protest by Harpy Marx

TV Channels Run Gaza Charity Appeal without BBC

In an unprecedented turn that goes some way to restoring my faith in people, ITV, Channel 4 and Five are to show a charity appeal for Gaza (due Monday) despite the BBC's shameful decision not to run the film.

We've all seen the horror of state of the art technology versus the equivalent of peashooters in a fish-in-a-barrel shooting spree. A conflict where Palestinian civilians, already run off their land and herded into a 25 mile strip (and when they call it a strip, they aren't kidding), have no-where to run as missiles, phosphorous and "flechettes" rain down on them.

Jonathan Miller's harrowing C4 News films, here, here and here from the battle-zone show us the results of "asymmetrical" warfare: 400 dead children, buildings into which the IDF have rammed families and then shelled them, gloating graffiti scrawled on the walls by the invading Israelis pledging death to all Palestinians.

A population already reeling from a two-year blockade, scant stocks of food and medicine incinerated in the UN compound, 1,400 dead Palestinians since the 2005 Israeli withdrawal, and now a thousand more in the run up to the Israeli elections, have been forgotten.

And the BBC refuses to air the Disaster Emergency Committee humanitarian appeal for aid to the Gazan civilians. Five now says the issue "transcends politics".

The BBC stands to the right of even our lousy government in this. One minister, Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, has urged the BBC to reconsider "in the light of the great human suffering still taking place in Gaza". And Ben Bradshaw says, "I'm afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally," and considers their excuses "inexplicable" and "completely feeble". While Liberal Democrat media spokesman Don Foster said the BBC's decision was "disgraceful".

Media Workers Against the War reports:

Israel has withdrawn its troops, tanks and bombers for now but says it will not lift the blockade which starves Gaza's population of food, water, fuel and essential medical supplies. The United Nations says that the aid now being allowed by Israel into Gaza is nowhere near enough to meet the basic needs of its people.

"The destruction in Gaza and the loss of the lives of over a thousand civilians and children, has shocked the world" as Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, made clear, when he saw the devastation for himself.

I watched Slumdog Millionaire the other day. One of the most upsetting scenes was the anti-Muslim pogrom where Salim and Jamal's mother is murdered by a mob intent on wiping them all out. The children have to run for their lives past burning people and incinerated houses, but where can they escape to? We weep at this and yet our brothers and sisters in Gaza have just gone through the same terrifying experience. Human beings lie in festering hospitals with no medicine, fuel, food or water. And the BBC denies them this most basic of help?

Give them humanitarian aid and stop selling arms to Israel.

Pix of Saturday's BBC protest by Harpy Marx