Women, minority ethnic groups and disabled people all under-represented, as BBC is accused of failing to lead the way.

Ofcom has criticised British broadcasters for a “woeful” lack of diversity among their staff and accused the BBC of failing to lead the way.

Women, minority ethnic groups and disabled people are all under-represented by broadcasters, a major report by the media regulator has found.

This lack of diversity is creating a “cultural disconnect” between programme-makers and viewers, with older people and people from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background (BAME) feeling they are portrayed negatively.

The comments echo a warning by Jon Snow, the Channel 4 newsreader, that the deadly Grenfell Tower fire demonstrated that the media had become too far removed from ordinary people’s lives and should have been more aware about the dangers of the high-rise block.

Sharon White, the chief executive of Ofcom, said: “The information we have is shocking. There is some woeful progress, especially for senior women, disabled people, and people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background.”

Women make up 51% of the general population but hold only 39% of senior roles at the five major broadcasters – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Viacom, the owner of Channel 5. In total 48% of the workforce at these broadcasters are women.

The broadcasters are also underperforming on employees with a BAME background – who account for 12% of workers but 14% of the general population – and disabled people – who make up just 3% of the workforce but 18% of the population.

The BBC leads none of the diversity statistics outlined by Ofcom. It lags behind everyone bar Sky on the proportion of women in its workforce, behind ITV and Viacom on women in senior roles, behind Channel 4 and Viacom on BAME staff, and behind Channel 4 on disability and on LGNT staff.

“It is disappointing,” White said. “The BBC is the UK’s national broadcaster. Whatever the BBC does has a huge impact on the rest of the industry. We would want the BBC to lead the way rather than be in the middle of the pack.”

The lack of diversity at the BBC has become increasingly controversial. The BBC’s list of top earners revealed that just a third were women and that the 10 highest-paid stars from a BAME background, including DJ Trevor Nelson, news reader George Alagiah and sports presenter Jason Mohammed, were collectively paid only about the same as Chris Evans last year.

Sir Lenny Henry, the actor and comedian, has led calls for Ofcom to force the BBC to increase the diversity of its workforce by setting quotas for on-screen and off-screen staff.

White said she was in “absolute agreement” with Henry that the BBC should have challenging workforce targets but that Ofcom was considering whether setting these targets was a responsibility for the regulator or the broadcaster, with a decision due in the autumn.

As part of this, Ofcom is considering whether the BBC’s existing targets are sufficient. The broadcaster has said that by 2020 it wants 50% of its workforce to be women, 8% disabled people, 8% lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people and 15% to be from a BAME background.

White has also called on Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, to give Ofcom more powers to force broadcasters to disclose employment data. The Ofcom boss said it was unacceptable that 57 broadcasters failed to provide information for the diversity report and these are now subject to enforcement action, which could result in a fine.

Ofcom has pledged to hold broadcasters to account if they do not promote equal employment opportunities and diversity. This could be through demanding written explanations when there are no improvements.

The regulator intends to expand the diversity report next year to include social class, an issue White said was “incredibly important” for diversity. It will ask broadcasters for information on the geographic and educational backgrounds of staff.

“We would call to industry across the board to move away from unpaid internships in order to broaden social class,” White said.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Ofcom’s report acknowledges its figures are from 2016 and that the BBC has since published more up to date evidence. We’ve been clear about our commitment to leading the way on diversity and our figures for 2017 show we have increased our representation across the board including in our female, LGBT, BAME and disability workforce.

“This shows the considerable progress we are making towards meeting our challenging targets by 2020, but like the rest of the industry we have more to do.”