Audiences want 'realistic' gay portrayals

Audiences want more realistic portrayals of gay, lesbian and bisexual people on TV and radio, with less of the obvious stereotypes, a new report has revealed.

The research, conducted for the BBC by 2CV and Kantar Media, found that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people wanted to see more authentic depictions of their lives.

Heterosexual people, who said that they were "comfortable" with gay lifestyles, also felt that broadcasters should offer more realistic portrayals of LGB people.

More than 2,000 adults were questioned as part of the surveys, while the corporation also held a public consultation that received over 9,400 responses.

The majority of respondents claimed to be comfortable with the portrayal of LGB people on TV and radio, or said that they did not feel strongly about it.

The 18% that said they were "uncomfortable" with the portrayal were found to be particularly uneasy with any scenes of "emotional and physical intimacy".

However, the viewers "uncomfortable" with gay lifestyles said that they "trusted" the BBC to deal with the subject sensitively.

Around 37% of respondents said that the BBC's portrayal of homosexuality was "honest, fair and reflected real life", but 25% felt that it was "poor".

There was an overall appeal for the BBC and other broadcasters to be less reliant on the obvious stereotypes, such as "camp, gay men".

Channel 4 was signalled out by respondents as generally fostering a "groundbreaking" approach to the subject.

In general, people want a greater integration between the gay and straight worlds so that sexual orientation will become less of an issue.

Recommendations based on the report's findings have been put forward to BBC director general Mark Thompson.

"The BBC has a responsibility to serve all our audiences as best we can and there are clear commitments we are taking from this study," said Tim Davie, chair of the BBC working group on the portrayal and inclusion of LGB audiences.

"We have already begun to share the research with content teams across the BBC in order to continue the progress we have made towards achieving more authentic and diverse portrayal of lesbian, gay and bisexual people."

Amanda Rice, the BBC's head of diversity, added: "The publication of this very significant piece of work sends a clear signal to all our licence fee payers that the BBC is committed to meaningful engagement with all audiences.

"Not only is this a key priority within our diversity strategy, it is also one of the best ways we can continue to learn about what the UK's diverse communities want and expect of the BBC."

In July, campaign group Stonewall claimed that lesbian and gay people appear realistically or positively in only 0.6% of the most watched programmes on British television.

After studying 126 hours of UK TV, Stonewall claimed that only 46 minutes of output from the main terrestrial channels showed gay people in a positive light.