Study says men outnumber women on TV two-to-one

On television one woman appears for every two men, according to new research commissioned by Channel 4 to mark International Women's Day

The study also shows that younger women are heavily over- represented on screen, with only four in every 10 women aged over 40. On the other hand, for every 10 men on television, six are aged 40 or older.

The study looked at a sample period of 386 hours of peak viewing across BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Five and Sky1 and uncovered that men now take up 65% of all possible broadcast roles. Even though women were well-represented in the soaps, with women taking just under half of all the roles, in light entertainment, comedy and drama they make up just four in every 10 participants.

The research also reveals that women make up only one-third of participants in factual programming and even less in news, with a share of only 31%. When women are in news programmes, 69% of the time it's to discuss "softer" news topics, such as health, culture or cookery.

Former Labour MP and Channel 4 head of diversity Oona King said: "This pilot research measures the gap between what we see in the real world, and what we see on TV, and is the first step in developing a comprehensive measurement of how well TV represents and portrays different groups on screen."

"Fundamentally, this is about how we view our world and which groups are hidden from view or significantly under-represented. The gender gap here is quite startling."

Source: Guardian

Published on: 08/03/2010 11:37:00