Beyond ‘comfort TV’: Streaming audiences want new offerings, more diverse stories

The legal drama "Suits," a nine-season behemoth that last aired on cable television in 2018, dominated the TV streaming charts in 2023, a year in which fewer new shows were produced and those that made it often faced cancellation.

In the face of a contracting industry, with streamers relying on old or long-running shows, researchers at UCLA sought to find where future success lies for the small screen.

"With the halt in television productions for most of 2023 and streaming viewership dominating broadcast and cable, we decided we needed to change the way we examined television to better understand what viewers want to see on the small screen," said Ana-Christina Ramón, co-founder of the Hollywood Diversity Report and director of UCLA's Entertainment and Media Research Initiative.

"The television industry has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Shows now aren't just trying to stand out among the latest shiny offerings," Ramón said. "They are competing against a whole catalog from the past."

The latest releasefrom the new Hollywood Diversity Report Presents series takes a comprehensive look at streaming television and the diversity of its actors, creators and audience in 2023. It examines the top 250 TV series, regardless of language, ranked by their Nielsen total minutes viewed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of that year on major streaming services, including Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+ and Peacock. For the first time, the report also includes so-called library titles - older programs no longer being produced but available on demand - alongside new and ongoing programs.

A better metric for TV success

Many streaming TV rankings tout the number of minutes viewers spend watching a particular program as a key measure of success, but according to the new report, that can't be the sole metric.

"Focusing on total minutes watched gives an advantage to older shows that have more episodes and seasons on streaming platforms. Current shows, which our research has repeatedly shown to be more diverse, face a disadvantage in some ways from the onset," said Darnell Hunt, interim chancellor at UCLA, who founded the report with Ramón. "Inevitably, that just feeds into the legacy of inequity that was built into the industry."

The researchers addressed this issue by examining those minute totals alongside a more conventional television measure of popularity: household ratings. These ratings points, calculated by Nielsen, use data from households that watched a streaming television program, measured on an around-the-clock basis during the reporting period.

In a year when little more than half the top streaming shows were current titles (56%), the researchers found that the top 10 streaming television shows changed drastically when ranked by total household ratings versus the oft-cited total minutes viewed.

Based on total minutes viewed, library titles and long-running current shows like "Suits," "The Big Bang Theory" and "Grey's Anatomy" made up the top 10. All of these series feature white lead actors.

But when considering total household ratings, the top 10 was completely populated by current titles, with children's animation series "Cocomelon" and "Bluey," which both ranked in the top 10 for minutes viewed, leading the list and newer, more diverse series such as "Wednesday," "Queen Charlotte" and "Beef" also charting.

The differences were also evident when looking at genres. For instance, even as some current executives may tout the high number of minutes viewed for procedural dramas - 5.28 billion - as success, the category also had the worst median household ratings. Contrast that with serialized dramas, with 4.18 billion minutes viewed and yet more than three times the median household ratings points.

"To really understand what more people want to watch - and what drives people to subscribe - the industry needs to realize that it's about more than just tallying minutes," said researcher Michael Tran, who co-authored the report.

Greater engagment through diverse stories, creators and actors

For the first time, the report looked at genres and story themes through genre sub-categories, also known as primary and secondary story arenas, revealing that new shows, which often feature stories about traditionally underrepresented people and communities, as well as diverse actors and creators, were popular.

Among the top 250 streaming shows in 2023, the ones that featured these stories posted higher median ratings, especially among female audiences, than those that did not. Underrepresented stories were most present in top shows created by white women (39.6% of the shows they created) and people of color (48.0%). They were also common in more than half the top shows with a lead of color, as well as those with female and nonbinary leads.

Although less than a quarter of the top-ranked shows featured underrepresented stories, the researchers continued to find that featuring stories from diverse communities may be a ratings boost, as shows highlighting these narratives posted higher median ratings across demographics, especially for women who were 18-49. This includes high household rated-shows like the Pedro Pascal-starring "The Last of Us," which also featured LGBTQ+ stories, and "Star Wars: Ashoka," led by Rosario Dawson, which included women-centered stories.

"The future of the industry lies in stepping away from this reliance on old and dated content," said Tran, a graduate student in sociology. "So-called 'comfort television' won't bring in first-time subscribers or keep people from canceling their subscriptions. They need something new."

The researchers also found a clear relationship between viewer demographics, ratings and the race and ethnicity of lead actors among the top streaming comedies and dramas. Median ratings were higher across the board for shows with lead actors of color, especially for current shows. This continues a trend from the annual report series on television.

Breaking down the top 10 across different demographics showed that for Asian, Black and Latino audiences, as well as those defined as other races in the data, six of their top shows by household ratings featured a lead of color.

Even among viewers for whom this pattern is least evident - males aged 18 to 49 - those shows led by a person of color still had a higher median rating than shows led by white actors by nearly a factor of two.

But, as previous reports have documented, people of color continue to be underrepresented as leads. Among the top streaming comedy and drama shows, almost 8 in 10 actors were white; Black, Latino, Asian and multiracial actors were underrepresented, and there were no Native leads. Even when looking at co-leads- defined in this report as the second credited actor - people of color were underrepresented, making up only 24% of the total.

Women viewers: No longer niche and separate

As shown in previous reports, including this year's releases on theatricaland streaming films, women and people of color continue to be key audiences.

Households of color were overrepresented as viewers for 6 of the top 10 shows based on ratings. Women, especially, helped fuel the television industry in terms of ratings and minutes viewed.

Women represented the largest audiences, exceeding their population share, for almost all the top 10 in both charts. The two exceptions were when they dropped slightly to 46.9% for "The Last of Us," which ranked seventh in terms of household ratings and to 46.7% for "Family Guy," which similarly ranked seventh in terms of total household minutes viewed.

Men in the 18-49 demographic have shown to be less engaged as viewers: only two of their top 10 shows exceeded 9 billion minutes viewed, whereas, for women, 9 of their top 10 shows exceeded that number.

"Hollywood benefits greatly when women are free to wield their own economic power," said Ramón. "In the entertainment industry, women have long been narrowly defined and undervalued as a market and, ultimately, taken for granted. Women are a central, driving force in television viewership and should be treated accordingly."

Additionally, research has consistently shown that women and people of color continue to face limited opportunities behind the scenes.

Of the 228 scripted series among the top 250 streaming shows, only 25 had a creator of color (11%), and 57 had a female creator (25%). White men made up more than three-quarters of all show creators (77.3%) and were the least likely to feature underrepresented stories (14.8%).

A closer look at television deals

In a new addition to their analysis, the researchers reviewed streaming television industry deals, such as first-look and production deals, in 2024 that were active as of Sept. 30.

The report also found that nearly two-thirds of deals went to white individuals (64.2%). In terms of racial and ethnic representation, Black industry creatives who received deals were overrepresented at 17.4%, exceeding their U.S. population share of 13.7%, and the share of Middle Eastern and North African creatives receiving deals was reflected at 1.2%. All other groups were underrepresented, especially Latinos, who only made up 4.9% of those who received deals, which was four times less than their percentage of the U.S. population.

The team issued a call to action for the industry to adapt to these changing viewer preferences and market dynamics.

"Executives need to decide if they want to rely on the comfort of minutes viewed or invest in the long term by attracting new subscribers and viewers with the new content they want to see," said Hunt.

Additional findings

• Only 14.3% of lead actors for top streaming, live-action, scripted series had a known disability, while co-leads showed an even smaller share at 8.2%.
• When looking at genres, serialized dramas performed best in terms of median household ratings, with the third-highest minutes viewed (4.18 billion). This was also the most common genre among top shows at 39.2%.
• Among the most-watched scripted shows, only 7.7% of the total number of their creators and co-creators were people of color, despite making 43.6% of the population. White creators accounted for the remaining 92.3%.
• There were no female show creators who were Latina, Native, or Middle Eastern and North African among the top-streaming scripted shows. There were also no Native, or Middle Eastern and North African female leads or co-leads in the top comedies and dramas.

Tags: diversity | race and ethnicity | film and television | media | research | performing arts | culture