Black inequity ‘costs Hollywood billions’
● Black talent is under-represented across the film and television industry, and it’s costing Hollywood billions.
So says McKinsey & Co, which found that consumers might spend as much as $10bn (R149bn) more, or an additional 7%, if film and TV projects were more racially diverse.
Black-led projects have been underfunded and undervalued, despite often providing a better return on investment, the consulting firm said in a report on Thursday.
“Executives should aspire for even higher upside as audiences become more diverse and the growth in demand for diverse content far outstrips supply growth,” according to the report, titled “Black Representation in Film and TV: The Challenges and Impact of Increasing Diversity”.
Hollywood studios have for years produced films and shows that disproportionately cast white men.
Netflix, the world’s biggest streaming service, is making some headway at diversifying Hollywood, but it still has a way to go, particularly behind the camera.
And the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the TV awards show the Golden Globes, has been criticised for its lack of diversity.
Some progress has been made across Hollywood in recent years in terms of diversity in on-screen talent.
But the prominence of some high-profile films and TV shows with black leads doesn’t change the fact that black talent is still largely under-represented, according to the research.
Films with two or more black professionals in off-screen creative roles — like producer or director — receive budgets that are more than 40% lower than other movies, McKinsey found.
But those projects make 10% more in boxoffice revenue per dollar invested in distributing and advertising than films with one or no black creative professionals.
Only 6% of films have a black director. The $10bn bump calculated by the researchers used a baseline of $148bn — a number that includes global theatrical box office as well as US streaming and TV services, but excludes sports and unscripted programmes.
The report, co-written by Jonathan Dunn, Sheldon Lyn, Nony Onyeador and Ammanuel Zegeye, analysed data and conducted interviews with dozens of film and TV professionals.
The authors collaborated with the BlackLight Collective, a group of black leaders in film and TV.
“When the on-screen and off-screen representation of black talent matches the share of black Americans, and when the industry succeeds in dismantling the ubiquitous workplace barriers preventing black creators from telling a range of stories, viewers of all races will gain access to the many different products of black creative expression,” the researchers said.