Back to All News
Building a Legacy of Inclusion: Results From Our First Film and Series Diversity StudyTed Sarandos
Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer
Social Impact
26 February 2021
GlobalUnited States
The Netflix Fund for Creative Equity will invest in the next generation of underrepresented storytellers
Listen to the audio version here
When we launched our first TV shows in 2013 like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, we aspired to tell stories that weren't available elsewhere. Not only in terms of the variety we offered, but also the people and cultures we brought to the screen.
As we expanded into films and documentaries, we continued to push boundaries - celebrating firsts with talent from traditionally underrepresented communities like Laverne Cox, Rachel Morrison, Yance Ford, and Dee Rees. Stories like Dear White People, When They See Us, Atypical, Master of None and Nanette resonated with audiences who rarely saw themselves on screen. We thought we were making progress but were we really, and was it enough?
To answer that question, we asked Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the founder and director of USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, to study our US commissioned films and series over a two-year period from 2018 to 2019. She and her team are renowned for their work in this field, including the Inequality in Popular Films reports, which examines portrayals of gender, race, LGBTQ+ identities and disability on screen across our industry.
The resulting USC Annenberg report, out today, analyzes the makeup of Netflix's on screen talent as well as our creators, producers, writers and directors. (Read the executive summary here and the full report here). We've released this report in the interests of transparency. Because without this kind of information its very hard to judge whether were improving or not. And the report makes clear that while Netflix has made advances in representation year-over-year, we still have a long way to go.
Across 22 inclusion indicators for film and series, 19 showed an improvement year-over-year. We are outpacing the industry in hiring women and women of color to direct our films, and women creators to bring our series to life, and we have achieved gender equality in leading roles across our films and series. We have also exceeded proportional representation of Black leads, co-leads and main cast across the two years that were examined. But not all racial/ethnic groups saw their representation increase during the period of the study. For example, we still have notable representation gaps, relative to the US population, in film and series for Latinx, Middle Eastern/North African, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities. And we still have work to do in increasing representation of the LGBTQ community and characters with disabilities.
Dr. Smith's years of research - including this new study - confirm that inclusion behind the camera exponentially increases inclusion in front of the camera, and that both depend on ensuring that the Netflix executives commissioning these stories are also diverse. We recently released our first Inclusion Report about Netflix's employee population. Over the years, we've seen that to drive real change, we need to approach our work with an inclusion lens. That means asking more questions like: whose voice is missing? Is this portrayal authentic? Who is excluded? This lens directly impacts who is being hired both above and below the line as well as the stories we make for our members.
Doing better means establishing even more opportunities for people from underrepresented communities to have their voices heard, and purposefully closing capacity and skill gaps with training programs where they are needed. So we are excited today to announce the creation of the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity. We will invest USD $100 million dollars over the next five years in a combination of external organizations with a strong track record of setting underrepresented communities up for success in the TV and film industries, as well as bespoke Netflix programs that will help us to identify, train and provide job placement for up-and-coming talent globally.
Illustrations by Ndubisi OkoyeThe new fund complements other investments we've been making to find and train new, young talent. Like our commitment to the Ghetto Film School, Film Independent's Project Involve, Firelight Media and Black Public Media to help foster Black creators. And the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival's Latinx Inclusion Fellowship Series, which mentors Afro Latinx directors. We've also supported these efforts outside the US. In Canada we created a mentorship program with imagineNATIVE to support Indigenous directors, producers, and screenwriters, like Kiley May. We've also been working to develop training programs on our series like Top Boy in the UK and 3% in Brazil, which both invited diverse aspiring directors on set to shadow the filmmaking process.
We're committed to continue our work with Dr. Smith and USC, and will release a report every two years, from now through 2026. As Dr. Smith told me, she's not aware of another quantitative study that has this degree of nuance - setting a high bar for the wider industry as an internal audit is a critical first step toward inclusive change." We'll also look to do similar studies in other countries around the world. Our hope is to create a benchmark for ourselves, and more broadly across the industry.
Taken together, we believe these efforts will help accelerate the change that Dr. Smith has so long advocated for - creating a lasting legacy of inclusion in entertainment. We are still in the early stages of a major change in storytelling - where great stories can truly come from anywhere, be cr
North America Stories
16/07/2026
This recent graduate and Georgia native has turned an early fascination with live production into a growing passion for camera work
In the live-sports-video in...
16/07/2026
TNDV is marking the first anniversary of Aspiration 35, a mobile production truck built around ARRI Alexa 35 Live camera systems. Over its first year, the truck...
16/07/2026
ATSC has completed a major revision to its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques...
16/07/2026
FloSports has announced an exclusive global media partnership with CrossFit for the 2026 CrossFit Games, presented by Air National Guard, beginning July 21 in S...
16/07/2026
Sennheiser has released firmware version 1.4 for its Spectera wireless system and announced the Spectera Command Button (Cat. No. 701014). The update adds comma...
16/07/2026
ESPN and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) have announced a multi-year...
16/07/2026
Audio-Technica has announced the 20 Series Control Application, a Stream Deck plug-in for compatible Audio-Technica USB microphones. The application is compatib...
16/07/2026
The fifteenth season of The Voice - La plus belle voix on TF1 used four Solid St...
16/07/2026
Gray Media and the Atlanta Hawks have announced a broadcast partnership that wil...
16/07/2026
Season 3 of Netflix's docuseries, which dropped this week, follows Jayden Da...
16/07/2026
The Texas Rangers and Rangers Sports Network presented by Progressive (RSN) have announced BZZR as the new direct-to-consumer distributor for Rangers game broad...
16/07/2026
With England's FIFA World Cup 2026 team getting ready to fly home after losi...
16/07/2026
In a return to Royal Birkdale, the team enjoys partnering with ETP and Gravity M...
16/07/2026
Along with a new studio at Ball Arena, the Colorado-based RSN is working with XR...
16/07/2026
Austria was back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and the team d...
16/07/2026
With 42 RF cameras and high-power radio mics deployed, the spectrum environment ...
16/07/2026
June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...
16/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Immersive Flight for New Cirrus App
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Leader in Personal Aviation taps URSA Cin...
16/07/2026
XenData Announces LTO Archive Appliances with both File and S3 Object Storage In...
16/07/2026
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming to GeForce NOW at launch, with the playable...
15/07/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a big deal for DAZN, which has distribution rights in three markets: Italy, Spain, and Japan. Each requires a different editorial app...
15/07/2026
As sports-media organizations manage rapidly growing content libraries and incre...
15/07/2026
HBS director of digital Johannes Franken talks SVG Europe through the operation built to serve FIFA World Cup 2026 rights holders remotely from Stratford, east ...
15/07/2026
IBC has unveiled the conference program for IBC2026, with this year's event ...
15/07/2026
Software-defined wideband RF platform supports 96-kHz monitoring, streamlined fr...
15/07/2026
New AI-powered module enables broadcasters and content owners to extract dialogu...
15/07/2026
Weeklong gathering at EBU headquarters will test new IPMX capabilities and expand certified product ecosystem...
15/07/2026
Force Tech has announced the appointment of Bryan Adams, CTS, as Vice President of Integration. Adams will oversee AV and broadcast integration project delivery...
15/07/2026
USA Sports has announced an exclusive English-language agreement with the Bundes...
15/07/2026
ITV Sport's FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage has been produced from one of the m...
15/07/2026
Program will provide professional camera kits, training, and technical support to participating local newsrooms...
15/07/2026
San Francisco church becomes first U.S. deployment of the 2 M/E production switcher...
15/07/2026
Former ESPN and NFL Network executive to advise startup league on media, distribution, technology, and fan engagement...
15/07/2026
The Houston-based RSN is the live-game home of the Astros and Rockets...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
GigaCloud, a leading Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, today announced a new Business Alliance Part...
15/07/2026
SMPTE, the global society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has announced the launch of the SMPTE 110th Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising...
15/07/2026
Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, unveils the new StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control, ...
15/07/2026
COW Jobs: Producer, Virtual Events - Hybrid, Full Time, Salaried
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Producer, Virtual Events (Hybrid | Full-time | ...
Back to All News
