Study Finds Racial Disparity in Writers’ Compensation and Showrunner Opportunities
In 2019, the upstart Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity, a diverse consortium of working television writers, released its first official project, the Behind the Scenes: The State of Inclusion & Equity in TV Writing report, which surveyed 282 peers — approximately a tenth of all staffed writers at the time — about the barriers to progress in their profession.
Since then, TTIE — now a sponsored project of Women in Film — has published Behind the Scenes annually, and the fourth edition, released today in partnership with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, has more than tripled its sample size, with more than 875 working TV scribes painting a vivid picture of sustained inequity in the industry.
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Top findings include disparities in writers’ compensation for developing original projects, as well as who gets the opportunity to showrun their own series. Among writers who developed new shows over the past five years, 70 percent of those who hail from historically excluded backgrounds did so without pay, compared to 53 percent of developing writers from non-marginalized backgrounds. And among upper-level writers who developed their own shows, 81 percent of white scribes were tapped as showrunner despite no prior management experience, compared to 67 percent of BIPOC writers who do have that experience.
In addition, the assistant-to-staff-writer pipeline still flows more smoothly for white people. Whereas 68 percent of white men and 56 percent of white women respondents who used to be assistants got their first TV writing gigs through a promotion from that job, just 26 percent of BIPOC men and 20 percent of BIPOC women who are also ex-assistants successfully became scribes through that route.
Among showrunners who participated in the survey, 48 percent said they could use help learning about best practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion, while 76 percent said they received no management training at all before or while running their shows.
Other sobering findings include two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents who have been harassed saying their showrunner was the perpetrator, and more than half (56 percent) of lower- and mid-tier writers never having the opportunity to cover set on their most recent show.
TTIE accompanied its survey results with a number of best practices to improve equity in the TV writing field:
Pay writers from historically excluded backgrounds when they develop series, and greenlight more of their projects.
Give veteran writers from historically excluded backgrounds the opportunity to run their own shows, particularly when they already possess transferable skills such as prior management experience.
Create an accessible training program for both new and experienced showrunners and co-executive producers that includes guidance on how to run a diverse and inclusive writers room.
Implement confidential, third-party exit interviews for writers to help identify unsafe work environments and prevent bias and discrimination in the hiring, firing and rehiring process.
Give writers at all levels the opportunity to acquire room-running, production and postproduction experience.
Continue to provide Zoom and hybrid writers rooms to ensure accessibility for deaf and disabled writers as well as those without financial privilege.
“We’re excited to see an industry shift in the right direction,” TTIE co-founder and co-chair Y. Shireen Razack said in a statement. “The work ahead is making sure EDI initiatives and pledges lead to true culture change and improved storytelling. We invite our colleagues to use TTIE’s findings and recommendations as a guide.”
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