Dr Samir Shah, a non-executive director of the BBC, said that a "tick-box" approach to showing non-whites had left minority viewers feeling embarrassed and irritated.
His comments, made yesterday during a Royal Television Society speech, came on the same day that equalities minister Harriet Harman announced plans to make it legal for a company to promote a black or female candidate over an equally-qualified white man.
He said: "The fine intentions of equal opportunities -- and they are fine intentions -- have produced a forest of initiatives, schemes and plans. But they have not resulted in real change.
"The result has been growing resentment and irritation at the straitjacket on freedom such policies impose and, paradoxically, the occasionally embarrassing overcompensation in an effort to do the right thing."
Shah said that many people from ethnic minorities question whether programmes reflect their life experiences or world view. While 'The Kumars at No42' was popular on the BBC, Shah said that many shows were an "inauthentic representation".
He cited the casting of the Ferreira family on 'EastEnders', who were axed from the show in 2005, as an example of inauthentic representation, claiming that an Asian family in the East End should have been Bangladeshi rather than of Goan descent.
The former BBC head of current affairs who now owns his own production company Juniper said that British broadcasting is still controlled by a "metropolitan, largely liberal, white, middle-class, cultural elite".
Shah called for every broadcaster to make sure their team of executives with real power come from different backgrounds within five years.
His comments follow comedian Lenny Henry's speech earlier this year in which he claimed that racism still existed in TV and bemoaned the lack of diversity in British broadcasting.
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