UCLA Diversity Report Finds White Men Dominate Most-Watched Streaming Shows as Lead Actors, Series Creators

As a film enthusiast with decades of experience under my belt, I can’t help but be intrigued by the latest findings from UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Research Initiative. The shift in focus towards streaming television in 2023 reveals some fascinating insights into the viewing habits of audiences today.

The University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) Entertainment and Media Research Initiative recently released its Hollywood Diversity Report for 2023, focusing on streaming television. The report revealed that a key factor for streaming audiences is the desire for fresh content and diverse narratives, as popular metrics fail to fully represent the market demand.

Based on the upcoming report, it’s been found that streaming audiences are eager for diverse narratives, with female viewers playing a substantial role in overall viewership. The research suggests that women disproportionately contributed to nine out of the top 10 shows, as ranked by both total household minutes watched and total household ratings.

As a devoted viewer myself, I’ve noticed an interesting trend: Households with diverse backgrounds tend to be more prevalent among the audience demographics of six out of the top ten shows, as ranked by ratings. It appears that women dominate these viewing figures, often surpassing their proportion in the general population for each of the top 10 streaming series, with a few exceptions – “The Last of Us” and “Family Guy,” where women accounted for approximately 46.9% and 46.7% of viewers respectively.

In 2023, “Suits” emerged as the most-streamed show, outshining others amidst a year with fewer new programs debuting and several TV series being terminated. This was partially because of the Hollywood strikes and general industry contraction.

Since TV productions stopped for much of 2023 and streaming services became more popular than broadcast and cable, we realized it was important to revise our approach to analyzing television in order to determine what viewers prefer watching on their small screens,” expressed Ana-Christina Ramón, co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report.

The research additionally discovered that in the top-streamed TV series of 2023, a significant portion was made up of ongoing series. (Or: Among the most-watched TV shows in 2023, many were current series.)

It’s worth noting that a significant trend emerges: showrunners, creators, and main actors in TV productions often tend to be white men. Yet, series featuring Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leads consistently score higher median ratings than others. Moreover, shows centered around “underrepresented stories” also tend to rank higher in terms of ratings. Interestingly, BIPOC households are more likely to drive high viewership among top-streamed series, but they contribute less significantly to the total number of minutes watched.

By emphasizing the overall viewing time, established shows with multiple episodes and seasons on streaming services may gain an unfair advantage. However, our findings consistently indicate that newer shows, which tend to be more diverse, start off at a potential disadvantage,” stated Darnell Hunt, the interim chancellor at UCLA and co-author of the report alongside Ramón. “Unfortunately, this can perpetuate the existing bias in the industry, reinforcing the historical inequities that have been ingrained.

In general, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities, especially Latinx creators, often find themselves facing a lack of representation in TV industry dealings by the year 2024.

You can find the recently published Hollywood Diversity Report here. This report is the latest edition from UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, which is led by Ramón. The study analyzed the top 250 television series that were accessible on major streaming platforms in 2023. For the first time, it included both library titles as well as new and ongoing programs.

The report criticized streamers for touting “minutes viewed” as a key metric.

By emphasizing overall viewing time, older shows with a larger number of episodes and seasons may gain an edge on streaming platforms. Unfortunately, our research consistently indicates that newer shows, which tend to be more diverse, start at a disadvantage. This situation tends to reinforce the existing disparity in the industry, a legacy of inequality that was ingrained from the beginning,” stated Darnell Hunt, the interim chancellor at UCLA who co-authored the report with Ramon.

Here are a few findings from the report:

2024-12-17 17:18

UCLA Diversity Report Finds White Men Dominate Most-Watched Streaming Shows as Lead Actors, Series Creators

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