UK TV Industry Sees Alarming Dip In Women In Senior Roles Since Pandemic

deadline.com:

The proportion of women in senior roles in UK TV has dipped alarmingly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with women making up just a quarter of writers and one third of directors during the past year.

In eyebrow-raising stats unveiled in diversity data monitor Diamond’s latest report, representation of women in senior roles was shown to have dropped every year for the past four years to 45.4%, with the largest fall coming during the main pandemic year while male representation remained pretty stable. “This suggests that men were less likely to be leaving the workforce during the pandemic, and that women have failed to return to senior roles,” said the Sixth Cut report from the UK’s Creative Diversity Network (CDN), which publishes Diamond.

Coming at a time when scribes are striking across the U.S. in a bid for better conditions, the data showed that less than one third (32.4%) of writers last year were female, with this figure even lower – 25.3% – for directors.

In terms of senior roles, women were only over-represented in heads of production and commissioning editor posts. In key genres such as drama and children’s, women held just 45.1% and 35.6% of roles respectively for the year to July 2022, when the data was submitted.