Diversity in Hollywood is maybe not as diverse as you’d think in these modern times.
The latest UCLA study, “Hollywood Diversity Report Presents: Streaming Television in 2024,” found that 91.7 percent of the top scripted shows on streaming have white creators; even more granularly, 78.9 percent have white male creators. (And not all of them are Taylor Sheridan — just a little zing to lighten the sting; his Tulsa King pictured above.)
UCLA studied 224 scripted series among the top 250 television programs. Of those, 27 had a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) creator, 49 had a female creator, and two did not have a clearly identifiable show creator. (A lot of unscripted TV series do not have a clearly identifiable show creator as there aren’t really writing executive producers in the traditional sense of the role, so those were ignored.)
The picture doesn’t look any prettier as a pie:
All told, diversity behind and in front of the camera “continues to slip,” the researchers found.
Women in leading roles slipped from 39 percent last year to 34.3 percent, and just 8.3 percent of the top shows featured women of color as leads. Coincidentally or not, four of five leads were white men, pretty much exactly in line with the white male creators stat.
“Unfortunately, this wasn’t unexpected, especially with the election results in 2024,” Darnell Hunt, executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA, said in a statement. “When you shut the door on diversity, you shut out opportunities for more perspectives, collaboration, exploration and growth. Without vigilance and pressure, the industry will continue to invest less and less in these creators and stories to the detriment of their bottom line.”
