Yahoo News Women Star in Majority of the Most Popular TV Shows, Study Finds
For the first time since the Hollywood gender parity coalition ReFrame was formed in 2017 by the Sundance Institute and Women in Film, the majority of the most popular shows on television and streaming were toplined by women.
According to the ReFrame Report on Gender & Hiring in TV, 108 (54 percent) of the top 200 scripted series in the 2022-23 season featured a woman in the lead role, up from 45.5 percent last year. Women of color were No. 1 on the call sheet on 39 shows (21 last year). Supporting casts are also diversifying: The ensembles of 152 shows (76 percent) were composed of at least 50 percent people from an underrepresented gender identity with 129 (64.5 percent) of them featuring casts of at least 25 percent women of color.
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Writers achieved gender parity, with 50.08 percent of episodes penned by women (up from 48.4 percent), while the share of episodes directed by women increased from 36 percent to 40 percent. (Still, they only nabbed 31 of 113 pilot helming gigs, and just three of those — all for streaming services — were directed by a woman of color.)
The percentage of female showrunners ticked up from 29.5 percent last season to 32.5 percent (women showrunners of color rose from 3.5 percent to 9.5 percent). Women wrote or co-wrote the majority (55 percent) of episodes on network TV, half (50 percent) on streaming and 39 percent on cable.
Every season since 2018, ReFrame evaluates staffing on scripted television shows — using data from longtime partner IMDbPro — and awards its Stamp to those who meet its criteria for gender-inclusive hiring in key positions in the cast and crew. As with last season, 94 of the top 200 shows qualified for the ReFrame TV Stamp, as did 13 additional series that submitted themselves for consideration. The full list of Stamp recipients is available on IMDb’s ReFrame portal.
Also for the second year in the row, most of this season’s Emmy-nominated comedies — Abbott Elementary, Only Murders in the Building, The Bear, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Wednesday — made the cut, but only one of the eight nominated dramas (Yellowjackets) received the stamp, down from three nominees last year.
“Our research shows that scripted television has been far outpacing studio features in the movement towards gender parity, in front of and behind the camera,” said ReFrame director Andria Wilson Mirza in a statement, also sounding a note of caution. “As we celebrate this positive progress, and the shows and showrunners that drove these averages up, we want to also point out that a third of the series that earned the Stamp this year have since been cancelled. As we look forward to a return to development and production of scripted television, it’s imperative that gender parity remains a priority, and that progress doesn’t stall or backslide just as women are gaining ground.”
The ReFrame Report also graded each major media company by the percentage of Stamp earners on their production and distribution slates. While Apple led last year with nearly 80 percent of its shows receiving the Stamp, its 2022-23 slate generated a steep drop-off. Companies with the most Stamped shows (nearly 60 percent) this season include Netflix, Disney and NBCUniversal.
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