Broadcasters are failing to reflect ethnic diversity in the nation’s favourite television programmes, according to a report out today.

Shows including EastEnders, Coronation Street, The Vicar of Dibley and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? were accused of stereotyping ethnic minorities in the report commissioned by Channel 4. It concluded that today’s “overwhelmingly white” broadcasters produced more specialist ethnic programmes in the past.

The report cited Asian corner shop owner Dev in Coronation Street and black single mother Denise, who had two children by two fathers in EastEnders, as examples of stereotyping and tokenism in soaps.

The study, by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, was commissioned after the allegedly racist abuse of Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood star, on last year’s Celebrity Big Brother. It calls for a financial levy on every TV show to fund schemes aimed at fostering diversity.

Most white viewers said that broadcasters were doing a good job, but black and Asian ethnic groups did not agree. The report also found that Eastern Europeans, as relative newcomers to Britain, had no expectations of being represented.

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