About

The goal of Multitrack is to provide substantial opportunities for emerging audio producers, while also pushing production companies, broadcasters and the wider audio industry to address issues of accessibility and inclusivity within radio and podcasting.

The 2021 Multitrack fellowship is happening right now, until the end of March. You can meet our amazing cohort of 2021 fellows here.

The next fellowship is currently planned for spring 2022. Applications will open in the autumn of 2021. To get the latest news on that, check back on this website, follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.

Multitrack fellows get internships paid at the Living Wage or London Living Wage (depending on location), training sessions with industry experts, a wide range of networking opportunities, and the chance to pitch audio documentary ideas for real commissions.

Multitrack is an entry level fellowship, providing opportunities to people who are from groups that are at a disadvantage entering the audio industry based on any of the following factors:

  • Race
  • Disability
  • Socioeconomic background

For background, OFCOM does an annual report called “Diversity and equal opportunities in radio”, which measures diversity among broadcasters using the protected characters set out in the Equalities Act 2010. The 2019 report found that within the UK radio industry: “6% of employees define as having a minority ethnic background” (this is the terminology used by OFCOM) and “6% of people self-define as disabled”.

The report also noted that “Barriers of social class and privilege can prevent the widest pool of people from being able to fulfil their potential, regardless of their background.”

The research paper ‘Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries‘ (commissioned by Create London) also states that “the cultural and creative industries are marked by significant inequalities; in particular […] the social class background of the workforce, and how this intersects with other issues, including attitudes and values, experiences of working for free, social networks, and cultural tastes.”

You can read more detail about how the fellowship works, and the opportunities it offers successful applicants, on our FAQs page.

The following production companies are all working with us to deliver the internship and training parts of the 2021 fellowship:

If you work at an independent production company which might be interested in hosting a fellow in 2022 or beyond, please do get in touch with us. The more production companies that get involved in Multitrack, the more opportunities we can offer to future fellows.

The history of Multitrack

The idea for Multitrack came out of an event in 2018, where members of the UK audio community got together to ask the question ‘How can we make our audio community better?’ After the event, a group of people got together to create a new initiative aimed at improving access to the audio industry, for people who are underrepresented and may be struggling to get their break.

Steering team

Multitrack is organised by a volunteer steering team. These are the people on the team right now:

We’re ever grateful to steering team alumni Husain Husaini (from Wire Free Productions), Zezi Ifore (broadcaster) and Leanne Alie (BBC and independent podcast project manager and diversity consultant) for all their work as previous members of the team.

There will be opportunities for new people to join our steering team, and/or get involved in helping us deliver aspects of the fellowship. We’ll be really grateful for any support members of our community may be able to offer. We’ll update the news section when we have more information. 

Our values

We believe:

  • Audio is an amazing medium for sharing ideas, telling stories and expressing creativity
  • Everyone who has a passion for audio should have an equal opportunity to make it their job – regardless of background, race, class, financial means, disability or other factors
  • Audio, like many creative industries, has an access problem caused in part by a culture of unpaid internships, low paid work and a reliance on personal and professional networks that not everyone can break into 
  • Everyone should feel welcome at work, and we need to work harder to help underrepresented groups to feel included

Building an audio industry that is representative of the society we live in, and is accessible to everyone, is the right thing to do because:

  • We believe in fairness and equality
  • A diversity of voices and opinions will make the work created within this industry better

Multitrack is backed by Audio UK.