ReFrame Analysis of IMDbPro Data Finds Gender
the initiative launched in 2017 by Sundance Institute and WIF (formerly known as Women In Film Los Angeles) to advance gender equity in the screen industries, and IMDbPro, the essential resource for entertainment industry professionals, today announced that 45 of the 100 most popular series of 2024-25 meet ReFrame Stamp criteria for gender-balanced production including Emmy-nominated series Dying for Sex, Hacks, The Bear and The Pitt (full list below). The 2024-25 ReFrame Report on Gender and Hiring in TV, which examines hiring across key roles in these series based on IMDbPro data, saw a rebound of 6.5% this year from last year’s tally, which was the lowest for gender-balanced series since 2020.
When content is produced by a gender balanced team, viewers tune in. ReFrame reviewed viewership data for the IMDbPro Top 100 Series and found that on average, ReFrame Stamped series have 1.33M more viewers than their non-Stamped counterparts. This preference for inclusive content held strong in the coveted target demographic of viewers 18-49.
ReFrame looked at a larger pool of the Top 200 series to examine hiring of writers and directors and the total episode count. Last year, the total number of episodes dropped from 1,977 to 1,773 (-204) and saw nearly equivalent losses for women, nonbinary and trans writers (-187) and directors (-199). This year, the total number of episodes rebounded to 1,979 (+206), but the hiring of underrepresented writers and directors did not recover proportionately. Only 134 of the restored episodes were attributed to writers and 117 to directors of underrepresented genders, an overall loss across those episodes of 28.3% and 41.2% respectively.
Additional findings of the ReFrame Report include:
Women, nonbinary and trans directors shot 35.8% percent of episodes this year, a slight increase from last year’s 33.4% (+2.8%). While they still lag disproportionately in their share of pilots and first episodes, some ground was gained this year: those directors helmed 35.2% of pilots or first episodes, nearing their share of regular episodes with a gap of only 1%. That said, their overall share is still far from parity.
Showrunners are still the single role with the highest correlation for overall gender-balanced hiring; 92.9% of series with women in that position qualified for the ReFrame Stamp.
A significant number of series (82%) had at least one woman in a non-writing executive producer role, but women of color in the role fell to 18% (down 7.5%).