As pilot season winds down and the shows get series pickups in the next couple of weeks, Neely Swanson took a look at the female writers creating pilots this year for Deadline and found that there was a big positive change from one season ago. Women actually have lots of shows in contention for pick up this season.

To review, last year the numbers were abysmal. Because there were so few pilots written by women that meant there were very few shows created by women that made it to the air. Here is a list of the female written pilots that made it to the air last year:

Scoundrels — Richard Levine & Lyn Greene (cancelled)
Better With You — Shana Goldberg Meehan
Off the Map — Jenna Bans (midseason start and probably will be cancelled)
Chase — Jennifer Johnson (cancelled)
Pretty Little Liars- Marlene King
Huge- Savanah Dooley & Winnie Holzman (cancelled)
The Killing- Veena Sud
The Big C- Darlene Hunt
Rizzoli — Janet Tamaro

The Big C and Rizzoli start their second seasons this summer. The Killing is also going to get picked up for a second season based on its numbers.

But this year looks so much better, and as Neely said this was an “earthquake” for women writers. About time.

The 2011 Numbers of Women Written Pilots (These are numbers for women writing solo and women writing as part of a male/female team)
ABC — 28%
Fox — 36%
NBC — 41%
CBS- 36%
CW- 50%

You can read the full breakdown including the numbers between women written and women writing with men (because it is problematic) here.

Here is a breakdown of the women written pilots (caveat- this is based off of the great research from the folks at Deadline. I took their listing of the writer to indicate the show’s creator. I am sure I got some things wrong. Please send changes my way.)

ABC
Grace — Krista Vernoff
Damage Control — Shonda Rhimes
Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt 23 — Nahanatchka Khan
Bad Mom — Sharon Horgan
Lost and Found — Marissa Coughlan
Suburgatory — Emily Kapnek

CBS
The Doctor — Rina Mimoun
Ringer — Nicole Snyder and Eric Charmelo
Untitled Susannah Grant- Susannah Grant
Two Broke Girls — Whitney Cummings and Michael Patrick King
Home Grown — Jackie Filgo and Jeff Filgo

NBC
Smash — Theresa Rebeck
Prime Suspect — Alexandra Cunningham
Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea — Dottie Zicklin and Julie Larson
Untitled Whitney Cummings — Whitney Cummings
Untitled Parham/St. Clair — Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham
I Hate That I Love You — Jhoni Marchinko
Untitled Kari Lizer — Kari Lizer
My Life as an Experiment — Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith
Untitled Emily Spivey — Emily Spivey

Fox (Fox just announced their lineup)
Weekends at Bellevue — Lisa Zwerling
Alcatraz — Liz Sarnoff and Bryan Wynbradt
The New Girl — Liz Meriwether
I Hate My Teenage Daughter — Ellen Kreamer and Sherry Bilsing-Graham
Outnumbered — Barbara Wallace and Tom Wolfe

CW
Heart of Dixie — Leila Gerstein
Danni Lowinski — Jennie Snyder Urman
Cooper and Stone — Laurie Arent

I will make notes of all the shows by women that get picked up over the next couple of weeks. Keep checking back.