Nielsen's Stacie de Armas Outlines TV Diversity Roadmap: Being Seen On-Screen

As television industry officials digest quotBeing Seen OnScreenquot Nielsen39s firstever comprehensive ongoing report over diversity in the medium de Armas Nielsen39s senior vice president of diverse insights and initiatives invites those readers to consider a pair of takeaways One some TV platforms are accomplishing more diversity than others and second there39s much more all platforms can do to take on and offcamera inclusion to greater heightsquotWhile TV content looks and feels more diverse than ever there are significant opportunities for TV to better reflect the society we live inquot continues de Armas quotDiversity onscreen really depends on platform It looks different for total TV than it does for cable for streaming and subscription videoondemand than it does for broadcast TV While we39ve all seen more diversification of content there are still very few identity groups that are represented onscreen and that realization does vary by platformquotNielsen describes quotBeing Seen OnScreenquot as the first mile of an everexpanding roadmap of TV diversity reports that will come out on a regular basis Each one will detail a snapshot of TV activity using a mix of content and audience metadata This first one going public earlier this month covers onscreen talent on the top 300 programs of last yearamp8212100 from the broadcast networks 100 from the cable networks and the rest from such services as Netflix and Amazon Prime all grouped under the SVOD categoryNinetytwo percent of those 300 programs have some women people of color andor members of the LGBTQ community in recurring roles according to this report NOTE Guest and cameo appearances were not monitored Presence is one thing significant representation on par or better than the population of individual demographics is far different For example women make up 52 percent of the US population and women are onscreen 38 percent of the time on these programs Another example more than 60 million citizens of Latino descent represent 19 percent of all US residents and have only 55 percent of onscreen representation overall and 25 percent among female LatinosWhile giving out those stats de Armas invites TV officials to use them as a tool to empower a variety of actions to expand diversity quotWhen we say there is some presence which indicates the industry is moving in the right direction there is a long journey ahead of us to continue to diversify the TV ecosystem quotshe details quotOur data can support that conversation at the platform level at the provider level at the network level and even among content developers and casting agentsquotNielsen first investigated development of an ongoing TV diversity initiative several years ago when a fellowship project led by associate Veronica Hernandez was conducted With a track record of doing individual reports on specific viewer demographics or programming to build on such as Spanishlanguage TV channels various formats were looked at Breakthroughs in datacrunching and the rise of a social justice movement in recent months led company executives to greenlight the initiativequotThe events of this past summer made us sit down sharpen our pencils and declare what can we add to the chorus of voices in this spacequot de Armas says quotBy marrying metadata tagged to programs all the people on shows their identities and our audience data that gave us perspective over not just who gets cast in shows but how that content is being consumed by audiences And we can show what people see and how they see themselves and how content informs their identity and how society receives and grows with different identify groupsquotBeyond casting the report also notes what content genres showcase diversity better than others and how different community members are generally showcased onscreen Programs of a science fiction or fantasy nature especially on Netflixtype services for example offer the best representation of diversity In the showcase arena AfricanAmerican women often come across with emotional investigation rivalry and crime scene storylinesquotThe quality of representation is as important as the quantityquot adds de Armas quotMore often than not we found that when people of color are a strong part of what is on the screen and also a strong part of the audience the audience often see themselves in themes and narratives that don39t necessarily support what39s happening in realityquot Moreover some community groups such as women over age 50 and Native Americans were largely absent from the programs monitored by NielsenEarly reaction to this first pass has been substantially and mostly positive with Nielsen officials already having discussions with a number of industry partners over what measures to enact next year In January an update with data on top TV programs launched in the first half of 2020 will be released From there further roadmap studies will introduce data on the roles actors play on TV representation of disabled citizens and offscreen diversity taking into account what programs get produced and who makes the judgments on their existenceClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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Nielsen's Stacie de Armas Outlines TV Diversity Roadmap: Being Seen On-Screen

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