Women and people of colour remain underrepresented in the televison on the most popular streaming platforms, despite being the largest audiences, a new study from the University of California has found.
The study shows that women are a driving force of television viewership and should no longer be undervalued as a market.
“UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Presents: Streaming Television in 2023”, released this week, analysed the top 250 television series that were available on major streaming services from the twelve months in 2023 to determine a range of measures, including the race, gender and disability status of lead actors; the race and gender of series creators; the genres and arenas of the show; and the race and gender of those with television deals.
The study looked at the top television shows watched on streaming platforms (Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+, among others) for that year and included “library” content, which are shows that have ended but are still available to stream.
The study focused on the shows audiences are watching, as well as the Nielsen viewer ratings (which measures audiences for television, radio, and newspapers in media markets) and the total minutes viewed for each show.
The study found that 77.5 per cent of most-watched streaming shows in 2023 were led by white actors. Meanwhile, just 5.5 per cent of the most-watched shows featured Black leads and 4.4 per cent featured Latinx leads.
Asian leads accounted for 2.2 per cent of the most-watched shows, while 9.3 per cent were led by multiracial actors and 1.8 per cent featured Middle Eastern or North African leads. No shows were led by a Native American or Indigenous actor.
“The television industry has changed dramatically over the past 10 years,” Ana-Christina Ramón, co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report said in a statement. “Shows now aren’t just trying to stand out among the latest shiny offerings — they are competing against a whole catalog from the past.”
“With the halt in television productions for most of 2023 and streaming viewership dominating broadcast and cable, we decided we needed to change the way we examined television to better understand what viewers want to see on the small screen.”
The study found that the percentage of television-owning households that are watching a particular program (known as the median rating) for shows led by actors of colour and those featuring narratives of minority communities were higher across all viewer demographics, which means that these shows were more popular across all audiences.
Darnell Hunt, the interim chancellor at UCLA who founded the report with Ramón, believes that focusing on the total minutes watched “…gives an advantage to older shows that have more episodes and seasons on streaming platforms.”
“Current shows, which our research has repeatedly shown to be more diverse, face a disadvantage in some ways from the onset,” he said. “Inevitably, that just feeds into the legacy of inequity that was built into the industry.”
Researcher Michael Tran, who co-authored the report, added “To really understand what more people want to watch — and what drives people to subscribe — the industry needs to realise that it’s about more than just tallying minutes.”
Tran, a graduate student in sociology, believes the future of the industry “…lies in stepping away from this reliance on old and dated content.”
“So-called ‘comfort television’ won’t bring in first-time subscribers or keep people from canceling their subscriptions,” he said. They need something new.”
According to the report, shows such as Suits, The Big Bang Theory and Grey’s Anatomy top the chart when it comes to total minutes viewed, but when viewership ratings are analysed, other shows including Wednesday, Bluey, Cocomelon and Beef which features two Asian leads, would also be in the top-10 chart.
When it came to the percentage of audience based on ratings compared with their share of the population in the US, women and people of colour were overrepresented. The study found that women are the most engaged and consistent TV audience cohort accounting for more of the total minutes viewed.
Women’s viewership exceeded their population share for 9 of the top 10 shows ranked by both total minutes viewed and household ratings. Despite this, there were no female show creators who were Latina, Native, or Middle Eastern and North African among the top-streaming scripted shows of 2023, and no Native, or Middle Eastern and North African female leads or co-leads in the top comedies and dramas.
“Hollywood benefits greatly when women are free to wield their own economic power,” said Ramón. “In the entertainment industry, women have long been narrowly defined and undervalued as a market and, ultimately, taken for granted. Women are a central, driving force in television viewership and should be treated accordingly.”