Sherwood writer James Graham has revealed that he fought to have the BBC drama made available in weekly episodes rather than released all at once on the iPlayer streaming platform.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Edinburgh TV Festival, where Graham delivered the annual McTaggart Lecture, he revealed that BBC Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore had brought him into the conversation about how the series would be made available to viewers.

“There was of course a discussion about whether the entire series should be made available on iPlayer, rather than weekly,” he explained. “I’m not against that freedom of choice for the audience. For some shows, a good old binge-watching process works. But I also value those television experiences that drag on, that force us to wait so that real, real-life conversations can arise around work. Those infamous morning-after ‘water cooler’ conversations the night before.”

“I really felt that we needed to protect not only the twists of ‘Sherwood’ by teasing them out so that a significant portion of the audience would be getting along at roughly the same time. But also because of the social and political themes that were deliberately constructed to unravel at certain moments.”

The annual McTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh has become known as a platform for electioneering in recent years, and Graham continued this tradition by talking mainly about class issues, particularly how underrepresented the working class is. He cited a study that found that only 8% of those employed in television are from the working class, despite this being up to 49% of the population. He also pointed out that the working class are the biggest consumers of television.

Graham called on both the industry and the new Labour government to improve the situation. What is needed is “a proper, industry-wide standard and plan”, which also includes monitoring class diversity in productions and awards ceremonies.

He also said the new government should “give culture an active role in this promised ‘national renewal’ – and not just keep it at a distance, in its own silo on the fringes of policy-making, as is so often the case.”

Graham also said the industry as a whole needed a “joint approach” and that he would “welcome the resources and expertise of those in the television and film industry to get the funding to build something and keep it going – both as a statement of intent for change and as a really valuable resource.”

As a first step towards implementing this change, the TV Foundation, the charitable arm of the Edinburgh TV Festival, unveiled a new initiative called the Impact Unit, which aims to make the industry more inclusive.

The Impact Unit will be led by Gemma Bradshaw of the TV Foundation and initiatives it will implement include setting up a cross-sector working group, introducing a social mobility grant for the festival and contributing to the development of measurement and monitoring methods.