ITV has banned all-male comedy writing teams.
The British broadcaster’s head of comedy, Saskia Schuster – who has worked on shows including ‘Benidorm’ and ‘Celebrity Juice’ – has announced the channel will no longer be commissioning comedy shows that have all-male writers rooms in a new bid for equality and a greater representation of women.
Speaking at Channel 4’s Diverse Festival on Monday (17.06.19), Saskia said: "Too often the writing room is not sensitively run. It can be aggressive and slightly bullying.
"The first thing I did was I changed my terms of commissioning. I won’t commission anything with an all-male writing team."
Writer Brona C. Titley – who works on ‘Celebability’ – also said: "If you have the same type of writers in terms of race or sexual orientation or gender, then you’re only getting one kind of joke.
"You want to represent the wide audience that’s watching. You want diversity in voice, or else it won’t be as funny because it won’t be appealing to as many people."
This news comes after Saskia recently started the initiative Comedy 50:50, which aims to get more women into writing for comedy, because they are "systemically under represented" and it "distorts" people’s "view of the real world".
She said in a statement: "ERA 50:50 wants to see women represented on screen, in television and theatre in equal numbers to men.
"Currently women are systemically under represented. This does not accurately represent our society. It distorts our view of the real world. Equal representation for Actresses, for Audiences, for All. Equal means 50:50."
ITV bans all-male comedy writing teams
