TV has gone backwards, according to Andi Peters, when it comes to putting multi-cultural faces on air.
Andi shot to fame in the BBC Broom Cupboard alongside Edd The Duck and then as a presenter of flagship Saturday morning children’s series Live And Kicking.
Andi, 43, is happy that his on-screen presence reflected the diversity of British society but he said that TV had gone backwards when it comes to reflecting Britain’s multicultural society.
“If you think about it, in 1989, I was on television every day of the week and there will have been a generation of children who grew up watching a black man on TV entertaining them,” he said.
“There was a generation of kids growing up saying, ‘Yeah, we do live in a multicultural society’.
“There aren’t as many black faces on television [now]. How have we gone backwards? Television needs to reflect the society to which we broadcast.”
In March actor and comedian Lenny Henry criticised the “appalling” low percentage of black and Asian people in the creative industries.
Andi will soon be back on TV with ITV’s new quiz show Ejector Seat, which sees six contestants take their place in imposing “ejector seats”, where they must answer general knowledge questions correctly to avoid being ejected from their chair.
“All the contestants said it wasn’t that they were hard questions, but more that when you’re moving backwards, your brain can’t compute,” he laughed. “I loved it, but then I didn’t have to be a contestant!”
Ejector Seat starts on ITV on Monday, April 28
