The announcement follows James Graham’s MacTaggart lecture at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival.

The TV Foundation has launched the Impact Unit, a new initiative inspired by recent MacTaggart Lectures, including screenwriter James Graham’s that was delivered yesterday, 21 August, at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, in which Graham called for the industry to co-ordinate and strengthen its approach to class and social mobility.

The TV Foundation is the charitable arm of the festival; its team has been undertaking preparatory work for more than 18 months, culminating in the launch of the Impact Unit. The permanent function of the unit is to help shape the TV industry into being more inclusive; open to all.

Initially, working in the area of representation of class and social mobility, the Unit will:

• Create a pan-sector working group in September that will be open for applications
• Contribute to developing measurements and monitoring, which speak to the specifics of the sector
• Highlight the organisations in TV that are Class Confident, and establishing a set of expectations that employees can consider in career planning
• Introduce a Social Mobility Bursary for the TV Festival to start in 2025
• Recognise the TV Festival’s own role in dismantling barriers to networking and connections
• Report on progress at the next TV Festival in 2025

The Impact Unit will build on the TV Foundation’s existing career development programmes, working with talent who find barriers to progression.

The Unit will also develop its new stream of work to look at TV content with purpose; initially focusing on the climate crisis working with industry leaders to find new ways to put more and better climate storytelling on our screens.

The Impact Unit will be led by Gemma Bradshaw in an expansion of her remit since joining the TV Foundation last year from One World Media.

Campbell Glennie, CEO for the TV Foundation and the Edinburgh TV Festival said: “The MacTaggart Lecture is unique in its power to effect change and influence conversations taking place in television. James Graham’s brilliant speech today joins the ranks of those most resonant of speakers who have been willing to reach inside themselves to make a difference.

“The launch of the Impact Unit is the culmination of months of work evaluating what the TV Foundation can be doing to address pressing issues head-on.

“We want to provide a collaborative umbrella to take forward all the intersectional issues around class and social mobility that we are exploring this week at the Festival and convene a passionate group of people to effect real change. Edinburgh is a brilliant marker for progress and we’re looking forward to supporting those who are also hungry for a fairer industry.”

Expressions of interest to join the Impact Unit’s industry group can be sent to tvfoundation@thetvfestival.com.