Channel 4 has long prided itself on being a broadcaster that is representative of society as whole. But the journey of providing representation for all isn’t always the most straightforward, no matter the intention.
The broadcaster sets out to “create change through entertainment,” putting a spotlight on “those underrepresented voices, those smaller minorities, that don’t necessarily get the stage,” according to Amber Kirby, Marketing Director at Channel 4, speaking at the IPA Talent & Diversity Conference 2025.
The home of Para-sport
Channel 4’s desire to push boundaries and trigger societal change entered into another phase when it became the UK’s official Paralympic Games broadcaster in 2012 – a responsibility it continues to hold.
In the lead-up to London 2012, Channel 4 found that only 14% of the UK population was thinking about either watching or going to the Paralympics, so it launched the ‘Meet the Superhumans’ campaign to drive interest.
“This is where Channel 4 really started its journey. A whole swell of the UK was thinking about the excitement of the Olympics, and we wanted to put the Paralympics on the same and main stage,” said Kirby.
“We had even bigger ambitions of that, and we thought that we had a little bit more main character energy. So, we invited people to ‘Meet the Superhumans.’”
The campaign, coupled with Channel 4’s coverage of the Games, helped toward half of the UK now finding the Paralympics as exciting as the Olympics. And, even more encouragingly, 69% of people said it was the first time they’d ever made the effort to watch it.
‘Meet the Superhumans’ gained plenty of positive feedback, and resulted in a number of schools choosing to display campaign posters to help kids begin viewing Paralympians and the wider disabled population in a different way.
However, the campaign was also hit was a lot of criticism, with people labelling the idea of disabled athletes being superhuman as “misguided as an archetype” and downplaying the talent and dedication of the athletes.
Superhuman samba?
Fast-forward to Rio 2016, Channel 4 realised it needed a new approach: ‘We’re the Superhumans.’
“We wanted to make sure it’s not about pedestal,” said Kirby. “We wanted to make sure it’s about moving on the conversation about disability for society as a whole. And we also wanted it to be celebratory.”
This campaign led to 79% of people saying it improved society’s perception of disabled people, while 76% had their eyes opened.
“We were really punching the air in 2016 and thinking, ‘yes, we’ve opened the world’s eyes to what disabled people can really do. We’ve normalised it’,” Kirby added.
Once again, though, Channel 4 had fallen short with some sections of the audience. Some disabled people were left feeling even more alienated, because they were ashamed of not being capable of the things they were seeing in the ads.
“’Sometimes, no, we can’t’,” Kirby continued. “We almost moved too fast, too joyful, and society, the attitudes, the ability, the accessibility, it just wasn’t there yet. That’s a really interesting thing to have in mind.”
We’re only human after all
For Tokyo, Channel 4 spoke to the athletes themselves. “We said, ‘tell us about that journey. Tell us about superhuman. Rio. The ‘no, we can’t.’ And they said, ultimately, ‘we want to tell our story because, at the end of the day, we are just human.’”
The broadcaster took this onboard and launched the ‘Super.Human’ campaign, focusing more on the imperfections that make the athletes human, as well as the determination and commitment that goes beyond any supposed superpowers.
“We created a new campaign that tried to embrace the normalisation of everyone, including elite athletes, who are really underneath very human. So, we took ‘Superhuman’ and we put a dot in the middle,” said Kirby.
“We also challenged everybody – we like flipping things upside down at Channel 4. We said ‘it’s rude not to stare. In fact, we want you to stare. We want you to look at this incredible sporting moment. Look at these athletes. Look at the dedication, look at the prowess that they’ve got. Look at these tiny moments of joy and disappointment as they reach the line together.’”
As would perhaps be expected, not everyone was appreciative of the “it’s rude not to stare” element of the campaign. In fact, some found it “highly inappropriate and very offensive.”
Consider this instead
Ahead of the most recent Games in Paris, Channel 4 research found that the number one reason people watch the Paralympics is through admiration of how the athletes overcome their disabilities. As you can imagine, the athletes themselves found this a little patronising and undermining.
In response, Channel 4 set out to change audience perception by addressing the condescending qualifiers sometimes used by people.
“[The campaign] really spoke to not just Paralympic athletes, but the disabled community at large,” said Kirby. “Those patronising, often well-meaning, misguided comments and attitudes toward them in everyday life is what they’ve experience. Sport doesn’t care about disability, so why are you always using that qualifying and patronising comment at the end?”
This ‘Considering What?’ campaign helped Channel 4 toward 7.3 billion minutes of Paralympic action being viewed from 19.9 million viewers. It was also found that 79% of people now viewed the Paralympics as being as exciting as the Olympics.
As we slowly head toward LA 2028 in three years’ time, Channel 4 will look to build on the progress it’s made, and promised to continue its “commitment to inclusivity” and “championing accessibility.”
