The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been criticized lately for having no Black journalists in its membership. But just because outrage is directed at the HFPA doesn’t mean the rest of Hollywood is off the hook. According to a new study from McKinsey and Company titled “Black representation in film and TV: The challenges and impact of increasing diversity,” Hollywood’s lack of diversity is costing it $10 billion a year in revenue. It found that Black stories are consistently underfunded and undervalued, despite having a higher rate of return per dollar than other properties.
“Barriers that undermine equity in content development, financing, marketing, and distribution come at a substantial cost to the film and TV industry. We estimate that the film and TV industry could unlock more than $10 billion in annual revenues simply by addressing these barriers,” the study said.
The study also analyzed the racial makeup of onscreen and offscreen talent. It found that from 2015 to 2019 in films, Black actors occupied only 11% of lead roles and 14% of supporting roles. Offscreen representation is more dire. Among film directors and producers, only 6% are Black. Among film writers, only 4% are Black.
The numbers were consistent in television as well. In 2019, 14% of leads on cable shows were Black, 11.6% of leads in broadcast shows were Black, and 4.7% of leads on streaming shows were Black. And out of all television showrunners, only 5% are Black.
The study also analyzed the treatment that Black talent faces. It found that “emerging Black actors receive significantly fewer chances early in their careers to make their mark in leading roles, compared with white actors, and they have a lower margin for error.”
And Black talent is “shut out of projects unless senior team members are Black.” Black producers and directors tend to hire other Black talent to work for them. The study showed that films with Black producers are more likely to have a Black director, and those films are more likely to have a Black writer. The data show that films with a Black producer (only 8% of all US-produced films) or a Black director (6% of all films) are significantly more likely to have a Black writer.
Black creators are also twice as likely to do “race-related films,” which receive only a third of the funding that “race agnostic” films do. As one actor in the study put it, “I have to take stereotypical work, because that’s what’s out there, but then when I take those roles, they say that’s all I am capable of.”
BIPOC representation is also severely lacking in executive leadership: 87% percent of TV executives and 92% of film executives are white.
The study concluded with recommendations for how Hollywood can change. Those include studios and networks making a target of BIPOC representation in leadership and talent they want to reach, and making that goal public. It also included seeking out and supporting a wide range of Black stories, and even including those goals as a line item in the budget.
“Studios, for example, could start by committing 13.4% of their annual budget to projects—again, to mirror the Black share of the US population—with not just Black leading actors but also Black producers, writers, and directors,” the study said.
The full study can be read here. It was done in collaboration with BlackLight Collective, a coalition of Black leaders, artists, and executives in the film and TV industry.