UCLA Hollywood diversity report highlights the importance of women in TV audience

Despite new parameters, UCLA’s latest TV diversity study has found that women and people of color remain underrepresented in key creative and lead roles in Hollywood even though they are a crucial demographic when it comes to viewership.

Released on Tuesday, “UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Presents: Streaming Television in 2023” marks a move away from the report’s usual format of examining the current television landscape through the lens of traditional TV seasons.

Instead, the new study examined the top television shows watched on streaming platforms in 2023, including “library” content, which are shows that have concluded but are available to stream. Rather than just focusing on what shows are being made, the study focuses on what shows audiences are watching.

“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,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report in a statement. “The television industry has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Shows now aren’t just trying to stand out among the latest shiny offerings — they are competing against a whole catalog from the past.”

The study looked at the top 250 television series that were available on major streaming services from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023 to examine the race, gender and disability status of lead actors; the race and gender of series creators; the genres and arenas of the show; Nielsen viewer ratings and total minutes viewed, and the race and gender of those with television deals.

The study argues that ranking shows by total minutes watched tells an incomplete story. By this metric, 77.5% of most-watched streaming shows in 2023 were led by white actors, while 5.5% of the most-watched shows featured Black leads, 4.4% featured Latinx leads, 2.2% featured Asian leads, 1.8% featured Middle Eastern or North African leads and 9.3% were led by multiracial actors. No shows were led by a Native actor.

But according to the report, the median rating (the percentage of television-owning households that are watching a particular program) for shows led by actors of color and those featuring stories of underrepresented communities were higher across all viewer demographics — meaning, these shows were more popular across all audiences.

“Focusing on total minutes watched gives an advantage to older shows that have more episodes and seasons on streaming platforms,” said Darnell Hunt, the interim chancellor at UCLA who founded the report with Ramón. “Current shows, which our research has repeatedly shown to be more diverse, face a disadvantage in some ways from the onset. Inevitably, that just feeds into the legacy of inequity that was built into the industry.”

So while long-running favorites such as “Suits,” “The Big Bang Theory” and “Grey’s Anatomy” may lead charts that look only at the total minutes viewed, when viewership ratings are considered, shows such as “Bluey,” “Cocomelon,” “Wednesday,” “Queen Charlotte” and “Beef” would also crack the top-10 charts, according to the report.

The study also found that women and people of color continue to be key entertainment audiences. Both demographics were overrepresented in the percentage of audience based on ratings compared with their share of the U.S. population, but women also accounted for more of the minutes viewed. According to the report, women are the most engaged TV audience.