UCLA this morning released the TV version of its annual Hollywood Diversity Report. In its conclusion, the study points out that “the meaningful progress this report documents in the television sector has largely occurred in front of the camera, thereby insulating the White males who continue to dominate the executive suites from having to share their power to make industry-defining decisions.” In breaking down the report, the Los Angeles Times' Tracy Brown writes: "The study found that people of color were underrepresented in all 13 categories of employment examined, while women were underrepresented in every category except among the leads in scripted digital series. The only jobs where the demographics were trending towards proportionate representation were for the lead roles in series across all platforms. Most notably, people of color comprised 35% of leads on cable shows during the 2018-19 season (people of color make up 40.2% of the U.S. population). While the study showed that people of color reached proportionate representation in broadcast shows when looking at overall cast diversity during the 2018-19 season (and was 'within striking distance' on cable and digital), it noted 'the degree to which individual racial and ethnic groups were represented on screen, as well as how gender factored in for each group, was not uniform.'"
TOPICS: Diversity, TV Studies