Channel 4 Sales recently launched the tenth edition of its annual Diversity in Advertising Awards, which has gifted £10 million in advertising space to campaigns promoting diversity and inclusion since 2015.
For 2025, the brief remains ‘Inclusive by Design,’ urging the industry to embed inclusive practices into creative development and remove barriers to engagement with TV advertising.
Building on this legacy, Channel 4 Sales today announces significant new accessibility commitments:
- From spring 2026, all adverts delivered to Channel 4 (across linear and streaming) will mandatorily require closed captions.
- This commitment is supported by investment in its streaming platform, enabling 100% of Channel 4 Sales streaming inventory to carry text descriptions and subtitles by the end of next year.
Building on this, Channel 4 Sales also announces it will commit to continuing to make sponsorship idents inclusive by design, and it will strive for all creative partnerships to have subtitles as the standard. Meanwhile all creative brand deals will adhere to a set of accessibility standards and inclusive principles, including those set out by Channel 4’s Disability Codes of Portrayal and a digital handbook by Channel 4 Sales, Bupa and Purple Goat with best practice tips and links to further learning for brands and marketeers, which launches later this year.
Rak Patel, Chief Commercial Officer at Channel 4 said: “The Diversity in Advertising Award is a powerful initiative that encourages the industry to be more representative of the UK. We’ve already seen great results from Currys and AMV BBDO so repeating the brief is important so that we continue our bid to make adverts more accessible and inclusive, inspiring advertisers and creative agencies.”
Amy Jenkins, Customer and Commercial Leader at Channel 4 said: “We are proud to continue driving change for our commercial partners and viewers with these new commitments, and to build on learnings to increase the speed at which we deliver on our intentions. Our partners at Peach, Extreme Reach, and Clearcast are on hand to help, and we will support brands in making their ads accessible. We are committed to improving the accessibility and inclusion of TV advertising.”
Competition entries for 2025’s Diversity in Advertising Award must be submitted by 26 September. A judging panel will then determine the winner and runners up which be announced this winter.
Further details and how to enter Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award are available here: Channel 4 Sales website – Business for Good