The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has released its 2015–16 Diversity Report. The study analyzes the ethnicity and gender of directors hired to helm episodic television series across broadcast, basic cable, premium cable, and high-budget original series made for subscription video on demand (SVOD). The DGA concludes that the report shows “minor improvement,” but the gains shown here really are very minor.
Over 4,000 episodes from 299 scripted series produced in the 2015–2016 network TV season and the 2015 cable television season were considered. In the 2015–16 season, 67 percent of episodes were directed by Caucasian males, 14 percent by Caucasian females, 16 percent by minority males, and a paltry three percent by minority females. (As bad as things are for women in Hollywood, women of color have it so, so much worse, both behind-the-scenes and onscreen.)
Overall, 83 percent of episodes were directed by men, and 17 percent by women. Last year, women directed 16 percent of episodes — so that’s a mere one percent increase. Caucasian directors accounted for 81 percent of episodes, minority directors 19 percent.
The Diversity Report explores how the eight largest television studios and their subsidiaries fare when it comes to hiring women and/or ethnic minorities. As the DGA specifies, the emphasis here is on production (the studios) rather than distribution (networks) — “combined, these entities oversaw the production of more than 75 percent of the episodes covered in this report.”
CBS, Twentieth Century Fox, NBC Universal, and Disney/ABC secured the top four spots in the hiring of diverse directors. CBS produced a total of 357 episodes of its 19 series — 41 percent of those episodes were women- or minority-directed (22.69 percent women, 21.42 percent minority). Sony and HBO did the worst job. HBO produced a total of 144 episodes of its 15 series — only 22 percent of those episodes were women or minority-directed (9.03 percent women, 12.50 percent minority).
“Series produced for Broadcast led the way in the hiring of women (20 percent) and ranked high in the hiring of ethnic minority directors (19 percent),” the DGA reveals. “Shows produced for Basic Cable ranked lowest in the hiring of women (14 percent) and highest in the hiring of minority directors (24 percent) — though it should be noted that nearly a quarter of all Basic Cable episodes directed by ethnic minority directors are attributed to a single director, Tyler Perry.”
“These numbers shine a light on the lack of real progress by employers in this industry, plain and simple,” said DGA President Paris Barclay.
Of the 299 series examined, 57 (19 percent) hired women or minorities to direct fewer than 15 percent of episodes — and of those 57 series, 30 (10 percent) hired no women or minority directors at all.
On the bright side, “73 series, or 24 percent of all series examined, demonstrated a commitment to diverse hiring practices, hiring women or minorities to direct at least 40 percent of episodes.”
The DGA has compiled “Best Of” and “Worst Of” lists of series pertaining to hiring women or minority directors, though it’s crucial to bear in mind that the DGA doesn’t differentiate between the two in these lists. So, a series that has 100 percent of episodes by women or minority directors may not have actually hired a single woman and only employed minority men, or a series may have hired white women exclusively, and no men or women of color.
Here are the top 10 entries on the “Best Of” list. Titles in bold also appeared on the DGA’s “Best Of” list last year.
- “Being Mary Jane” (10 eps.) Breakdown Productions Inc./ BET / BET Productions, LLC 100 percent.
- “Game, The” (10 eps.) Breakdown Productions Inc./ BET / BET Productions, LLC 100 percent.
- “Heartbeat” (9 eps.) Universal Television LLC/ NBC / NBC Universal 100 percent.
- “Zoe Ever After” (7 eps.) Breakdown Productions Inc./ BET / BET Productions, LLC 100 percent.
- “Soul Man, The” (24 eps.) King Street Productions Inc./ TV Land / MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, Inc. 92 percent.
- “American Crime” (10 eps.) ABC Studios/ ABC / Disney/ABC Companies 90 percent.
- “From Dusk till Dawn”: The Series (10 eps.) Dusk Productions LLC/ El Rey Network / Tres Pistoleros LLC 90 percent.
- “Greenleaf” (13 eps.) Preach Productions, Inc./ OWN / Just Rewards Productions, Inc. 85 percent.
- “Transparent” (10 eps.) Picrow, Inc./ Amazon Prime / Picrow, Inc. 80 percent.
- “Jane the Virgin” (22eps.) Eye Productions Inc./ CW / CBS Companies 77 percent.
Many series on the “Worst List” hired exactly zero percent of women or people of color to helm episodes. Titles on this list include “Aquarius,” “Difficult People,” “Fargo,” “Galavant,” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
Check out the complete Diversity Report, including the other titles worth cheering and jeering about on the “Best Of” and “Worst Of” lists on the DGA’s website.
