RESEARCH

Think Tank for Inclusion & Equity (TTIE) is proud to release our 5th "Behind the Scenes: The State of Inclusion & Equity in TV Writing" Report in partnership with Horowitz Research. This year’s report combines market and consumer insights with the testimonies of almost 700 professional TV writers to connect two critical data points: what do audiences want, and what's stopping writers from delivering it. 

The market and consumer data is clear: 65% of audiences want diverse, authentic stories, and nearly half would drop companies that pull back from DEIA.

But the data from TV writers tells a different story, one of the sizable inequities TV writers navigate daily: harassment and toxic workplaces, stymied career advancement, free development, and the watering down of authentic and accurate stories. Some findings include:

• Workplace discrimination is widespread: About half (45%) of all survey respondents report having experienced microaggressions, harassment, discrimination, or bullying at work at least occasionally. 39% of those asked said these incidents were perpetrated by their showrunners, and 47% said the perpetrator was another writer.

• Payment disparities in development: Writers who have developed projects for studios or distributors are more likely to be paid than those who have developed for PODs (59% and 80%, respectively, vs. 27%). However, there is a remarkable disparity in terms of who gets paid for development and who doesn’t: 42% of historically excluded writers reported mostly unpaid development by studios versus only 19% of non-marginalized writers.

• Showrunner advancement gap: Only 49% of historically excluded writers in development say that if their project were greenlit, they would be made showrunner, compared to 79% of non-marginalized writers in development.

While the data is sobering, this report is also a roadmap for change. It's a tool for writers navigating their careers and advocating for themselves, showrunners and executives seeking concrete ways to build better rooms, agents, managers, and attorneys wanting to be stronger advocates for all their clients.

Ours is the ONLY data of its kind, directly from the responses of working TV writers, that is shared publicly with the industry at large. We’ve consulted with Disney/ABC, Viacom/Nickelodeon, WarnerMedia, Amazon Studios, Rideback, the Producers Guild of America, and the American Film Institute, among others, as well as inspired additional research like the WGA Inclusion Report Card and the UCLA/WGA Diverse Writer Study.