A recent study done by the Center for Study has gathered data from series from 2022-23 and the percentage has increased from 45% last year to 50% this year.. Studies have shown that women are doing well having won around 47% of all game shows compared to the men’s 52%. This increase serves as a positive sign, as it symbolizes the growing diversity of television entertainment today. According to Deadline, Dr Martha Lauren has stated that more females showed up as contestants on reality programs and game shows than on series during the 2022-23 season. While the study’s findings are disappointing, they also suggest that there is room for improvement. By hiring more women to create, write, and direct scripted TV shows, networks and streamers can help create a more diverse and inclusive industry.
Unfortunately, unlike being contestants on game or reality shows, the majority of females being major characters on scripted series have dramatically declined. According to Deadline,“ The percentage of female characters hasn’t changed substantially on broadcast TV in over decade,” said Lauzen, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film at SDSU. “In 2007-08, females comprised 43 percent of all characters. In 2022-23, females accounted for 44 percent of all characters. The story is much the same for streamers. Females accounted for 44 percent of characters in 2016-17 and 45 percent in 2022-23. The current study from SDSU found that women created about 3,500 characters and 4,500 behind-the-scenes roles for both broadcast networks and streamers.
The study found that 32% of people who work on scripted and reality TV shows are women and that women in general prefer to work on unscripted shows over scripted shows. According to Deadline, women were also more likely to be employed as producers on unscripted programs (47%) than on scripted programs (41%). In other roles, the differences were slight: creators (26% scripted, 25% unscripted), executive producers (33% scripted, 34% unscripted), editors (20% scripted, 19% unscripted), and directors of photography (6% scripted, 5% unscripted).