Women TV Creators Drop to Lowest Share in Nearly a Decade, Study Finds
Streaming shows with female creators fell from 36% to 24% in one year, erasing prior gains and reaching 2017-18 lows.
What to know
- Female creators of streaming shows hit a 9-year low at 24%, down from 36% just one year prior, reversing 2024-25 gains entirely.
- Women directing dropped sharply on both platforms; female characters in major roles also declined, while aging out of speaking roles far earlier than male counterparts.
- The study spans 27 years of data (1997-98 to 2025-26) and suggests last year's increase was a temporary surge, not a trend shift.
“The fully-realized characters played by Kathy Bates on Matlock or Jean Smart on Hacks remain the exception, not the rule, for women on television.”
Dr. Martha Lauzen, Study author, San Diego State University · The Hollywood Reporter
Dr. Martha Lauzen Executive director, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film
The record 2 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 24 voices from 2 sites · best of 186 · verbatim
- Sep 1
-
I don't care the gender just make good shows like widows bay
-
Exactly this. Completely worthless hacks were shoved into positions they hadn't earned nor had the merits for, even by Hollywood (and adjacent) standards it was ridiculous. They ruined numerous IPs to the point they may never recover, and everyone knows what happened even if they won't articulate it for fear of repercussions. There is no better…
-
As always, journalists are useless and just look for headlines. There are less shows across the medium, thus there are less producers and characters. Rising costs, declining viewership and the threat of early cancellations is digging the grave of TV.
-
The article uses percentages, not absolute numbers
-
Looking up [the actual study](https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/2025-26-Boxed-In-Report.pdf), 2024-25 was an outlier but the trend since 2019 is a slow decline for both streaming and broadcast. [Graph of the numbers](
-
So many folks I know in the industry are hard up for work. The streamers make less content then the networks did and they buy more overseas. And now that advertising is coming back it'll be just like cable TV without the linear nature, but less new content.
-
So what? If they create something people want to see I’m sure it’ll get out there, just don’t be like Mindy Kaling and make bad shows.
-
I need another show about 20-somethings and their toxic sex lives that are definitely not the writers’ self-inserts.
-
They are getting less chances because too many women were pushed forward that weren’t ready and it created a bad taste in the mouth of the public. Not that women can’t create great shows, we just keep overcorrecting.
-
The bigger talking point is that there are just way less shows being made across the board, regardless of showrunner's gender/race/sexuality. The streaming bubble burst a couple of years ago. The industry is in shambles (go look at r/filmmakers; professionals with 15-20 years of experience who were so booked they were turning down work a few years…
-
Fewer shows are being made now than a decade ago as well so it would follow that there are less people working across the gender spectrum.
-
And guys watch them; they have an audience. Who would have thought if you make shows for a core audience instead of ruining IP after IP in order to piss off fan bases it would actually result in people watching the show.
-
I miss the millennial optimism Obama years so terribly. Things were made with humanity and hope, even if it was cringy sometimes, it’s better than overstimulating AI stop.
-
Technology and big tech companies were supposed to bring us all together and improve our lives. Now all they do is collect our data, invade our privacy, and sell our information.
-
Yup. Clear ragebait. You can't perform a proper statistical analysis to establish trends with just 3 data points. Their information literally says that 2 years are the same and one is different, yet they chose the word "plummeted," despite the numbers returning to the previous year's.
-
It's funny how different their target demographics are
-
“Ryan Murphy” What can I say, the people yearn for homoerotic true crime thrillers that drastically mistell the real story
-
And yet my 2 favorite new shows this year Widows bay and Furious both comedic women writers tiptoeing in different genres.
-
If you read the article they're comparing percentages not raw numbers.
-
Hollywood is making 40% fewer shows than it was just four years ago, so yeah I’d expect there to be fewer women creating shows, too. Also fewer men. Same reason.
-
I miss 2010 - 2015, you had this hopeful feeling things were on the up. Then everything from entertainment and industries and politics and the internet shat the bed.
-
Sounds like 2024-25 was a clear outlier given the year before and after are almost the same.
-
Well it's hard when Ryan Murphy and Taylor Sheridan create half of all shows
-
A
TV show study finds the majority of women in speaking roles (2025-26) were in their 20s & 30s; men were in 30s and 40s. The # of female characters steeply decline as they aged from 30s to 40s, while their male counterparts didn’t drop until their 50s. https://www. hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-ne…