Code of Silence and The Assembly among the big shows utilising diversity spend

ITV is ahead of target on its three-year £80m diversity spending commitment after its first year, with shows such as Code of Silence and The Assembly among the beneficiaries.  

According to ITV’s 2025 Impact Report, published today, ITV has so far spent £29.9m (37.5%) of the fund, which is designated for diverse projects between 2025 and 2027.  

The fund was renewed early last year following a successful first round covering 2022 to 2024, also worth £80m.  

The projects benefitting from the earmarked money included primetime drama Code of Silence, which placed the Deaf experience at the heart of its story and the production, and Rockerdale Studios’ The Assembly, which sees celebrities interviewed by a collective of autistic, neurodivergent and/or learning-disabled interviewers.  

The spend also includes returning commissions such as Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents’ Evening and Sorry I Didn’t Know.  

ITV’s Fresh Cuts initiative also returned in 2025 with six commissions across a mix of genres and benefitted from the diversity development fund, alongside the East on Screen: ITV Writers’ Room, an initiative to address the under-representation of British East and South East Asian creatives.  

For 2026 so far, the diversity commissioning spend has continued with an extended run for the second series of The Assembly and new drama Saviour.  

ITV Studios’ disabled writers in development will also return this year, with four writers supported by ITV Studios to develop a treatment and pilot script over 12 months.  

ITV Workforce representation  

ITV’s impact report also detailed the improvements to the broadcaster’s workforce representation.  

It found that Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent representation rose to 13.6%, surpassing its 12% target. Representation of people of colour also increased to 15.3%, closing in on its 20% all-colleague target.  

Meanwhile, 29% of ITV workers come from working class backgrounds, with a 33% target while LGBTQ+ representation reached 9.8% to exceed its 7% goal. 53.3% of employees at ITV are women, ahead of the 50% target.  

2026 has also marked the year that ITV became a ‘Class Confident’ organisation, following actions launched by the TV Foundation at the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2025. ITV also remains an active member of the TV Access Project.