Is Diversity a Risk for Streaming Viewership? Absolutely Not, Says UCLA Report

For anyone unfamiliar, the Hollywood Diversity Report is an 11-year-running annual in-depth analyses of the industry at large. Developed by UCLA, it’s an audit of sorts of tracking diversity behind and in front of the camera, as well as comprehensive breakdowns of the audiences and what they’re watching in the theaters and at home.

This extensive research project is broken down into parts, with the first released last year revealing “women and people of color drove box office numbers” (via UCLA’s media release). Part two is here to focus on everyone’s favorite new catered cable programming, streaming.

The general summary of the report shows that women and people of color were extremely dominate in viewership for streaming this year. This is important for representation in many big ways, as it shows that diversity in front of and behind the camera naturally draws an audience at shouldn’t be viewed as a “risk.” As UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost, and co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report Darnell Hunt puts it:

“We know investing in diversity isn’t a risk. It should be considered a strategic business imperative if Hollywood wants to survive.”

It’s a very concise and important point made by Hunt. We often hear big studio movies timid to make earnest diverse films due to the “risk” of alienating their audience. Which, in theory, is pretty silly when you consider the grander population of the world, and it’s important and cool to see these numbers presented by the report.

Anyway.

Here at No Film School we rarely get to give our readership what they’re all looking for: charts! School is in the name, people. You have to expect charts every once in awhile. Buckle up.

Keep reading below for a closer look at the numbers carefully researched by UCLA scholars.

Key Takeaways 

Look at that data! As I am no man of numbers, I’ll let it speak for itself without superfluous wax poetics. Enjoy these key takeaways assembled by the true heroes of this report:

• Women made up the majority of viewers for nine of the top 10 streaming films of 2023, while households of color were also overrepresented as viewers for nine of the top 10.
• Among creators, women and people of color still find more opportunities in streaming than in theatrical productions but continue to face limited resources as white male directors helm the few high-budget projects.
• Women reached proportionate representation as leads in films but were most likely to star in films with smaller budgets and continue to lag in terms of overall cast.
• People of color remain underrepresented behind the camera, but they reached proportionate representation in terms of total cast on screen and their largest share of film leads for the first time in the report series.

While this is certainly a promising move forward for diversity in film and TV, we can only hope that this stays consistent in years to come. Judging by the output of successful diverse films already in the first quarter of 2024 alone I personally think it’s a promising move forward for more unique and diverse voices.

Stray Observations From UCLA

As we end this chart parade (two isn’t bad and it’s almost lunch, okay) here are some addition findings provided by the report we’d like to share:

• Only two to three films from each household or viewer group’s top 10 streaming films featured casts where more than 20% of the actors had known disabilities.
• Only three to five films from each group’s top 20 list had casts with proportionate disability representation.
• A majority of the top streaming films with a BIPOC writer also had a BIPOC director (71.4%), while nearly two-thirds of those with a woman writer also had a woman director (63.4%).
• Almost three-quarters of top streaming films in 2023 were written by white writers (72%).
• Individual racial and ethnic groups continued to have varying degrees of representation. Latinx (8%) and Asians (4%) were underrepresented among film leads, while Native actors (1%) approached proportionate representation. Black (16%), multiracial (12%), and Middle Eastern and North African (4%) actors were overrepresented.

What did we learn? Do you think this is a trend or an upward swing for diverse voices in Hollywood?

Are you okay? You’re being quiet. Did something happen at school? We can talk about it. No? Okay, fine. It’s fine. We’re fine.

[Via UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report]