Women in Media Fact Sheet

Women will not be truly equal until we have full and fair representation in the media -– a fact long recognized by the National Organization for Women. Because the media play a central role in informing the public about political, legal, health and other matters, they have the power to affect each and every issue that feminists care about. For instance, we cannot advocate effectively for pay equity, reproductive rights or violence prevention if the media ignore these issues or present them from a limited viewpoint that favors the status quo.

How unequal is the media? Women and people of color are sorely lacking as media owners and high-level executives; they are under-represented in decision-making roles (like news directors) and high-visibility positions (like network anchors); and they make up a small portion of the experts weighing in on the big issues of the day on political talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages.

Just how bad is the situation? Read on...

• Diversity Lacking in TV and Radio Ownership
• Women Unequal in Media Jobs
• Men Dominate Network TV and Cable News
• Women Underrepresented in Print News
• More Women Needed in Radio Industry
• Movies and Primetime TV: Women Missing Behind the Scenes
• What Girls and Boys See in Children's TV and Movies

Diversity Lacking in TV and Radio Ownership

• Women own just six percent of the commercial broadcast TV stations in the U.S., and people of color own a mere three percent. In fact, the total number of African-American owned stations has dropped by nearly 70 percent since 1998.¹


• Women own just six percent of all full-power commercial broadcast radio stations in the U.S., and people of color own just eight percent. Women and people of color are more likely to own fewer stations per owner than white male and corporate owners, and are more likely to own less valuable AM stations.²

Women Unequal in Media Jobs

• Only one in four communications/media jobs created between 1990 and 2005 were filled by women. The only area where the share of women increased was in the newspaper industry -- the lowest-paid industry in the sector, where many of the women are employed in part-time telephone sales positions.³


• For full-time workers in the communications/media sector, a gender and race wage gap persists: White men are paid 29 percent more than white women and 46 percent more than women of color.⁴


• Among communications companies in the Fortune 500, women comprise just 15 percent of top executives and only 12 percent of board members.⁵

Men Dominate Network TV and Cable News

• While slightly more than half of local television news anchors are now women, women still make up only 28 percent of local news directors and 16 percent of the general managers at TV stations that air local news. People of color fill just 16 percent and 10 percent, respectively, of these key decision-making positions.⁶


• For decades, the big three national network evening newscasts have been anchored predominantly by men, with a few trailblazing female co-anchors, substitutes and weekend anchors. In 2006, CBS finally hired a woman for a position equivalent with her male competitors at ABC and NBC -- making Katie Couric the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast and the program's managing editor.


• The premiere news program on network television, CBS's 60 Minutes, currently boasts 10 regular correspondents and contributors, of whom three are women. None are people of color.⁷


• Of all network news stories, slightly more than a quarter are reported by women correspondents and 15 percent by people of color.⁸


• On the broadcast networks' Sunday morning political talk shows, male guests outnumber female guests by an average ratio of four-to-one. White guests outnumber guests of any other race or ethnicity by nearly seven-to-one.⁹ All four shows are hosted by white men.


• On primetime cable news programs, more than three-quarters of the hosts are white men and less than a quarter are white women. None of the hosts are people of color. The typical guest on these shows is white and male; overall, 67 percent of the guests are men and 84 percent are white. The percentage of guests who are women and/or people of color falls far short of their percentages in the general U.S. population.¹⁰

Women Underrepresented in Print News

• At daily newspapers in the U.S., women and people of color remain under-represented. Nearly 90 percent of reporters/writers and newsroom supervisors are white and about two-thirds are male. Hundreds of newspapers in this country employ NO minorities as full-time staff.¹¹


• While the percentage of women in the very top positions at U.S. newspapers has grown in recent years, they still make up less than one-fifth of president/publisher/CEOs.¹²


• Women make up only one-third of the top 100 syndicated opinion columnists in the U.S. Just three of the top 10 op-ed writers are women.¹³


• In various studies of author bylines in political and general interest magazines, the ratio of men to women writers is consistently disproportionate, with the male advantage ranging from 2 to 1 to as high as 13 to 1.¹⁴

More Women Needed in Radio Industry

• Women make up only 20 percent of local radio news directors and 25 percent of the general managers at radio stations that run local news. People of color fill a mere 6 percent and 5 percent, respectively, of these top positions.¹⁵


• Just one-tenth of program directors at U.S. radio stations are women.¹⁶


• Of the top 100 "most important" radio talk shows in the U.S., as ranked by TALKERS magazine, only 15 of those shows are hosted or co-hosted by women.¹⁷

Movies and Primetime TV: Women Missing Behind the Scenes

• Women comprised just 15 percent of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2007. A shocking 21 percent of films released in 2007 employed NO women in any of these roles. Zero films failed to employ a man in at least one of these roles.¹⁸


• Women made up 26 percent of the creators, executive producers, producers, writers, directors, editors and directors of photography during the 2007-08 television primetime season.¹⁹

What Girls and Boys See in Children's TV and Movies

• In television for kids, male characters appear at about twice the rate of female characters. Animated programs in particular are more likely to portray male characters. Females are almost four times as likely to be presented in sexy attire and twice as likely to be shown with a diminutive waist.²⁰


• In a study of G-rated films from 1990-2005, only 28 percent of the speaking characters (both live and animated) were female. More than four out of five of the narrators were male. Eighty-five percent of the characters were white.

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¹ Free Press, " Out of The Picture 2007: Minority & Female TV Station Ownership in the United States," October 2007

² Free Press, "Off The Dial: Female and Minority Radio Station Ownership in the United States," June 2007

³ Institute for Women's Policy Research, "Making the Right Call: Jobs and Diversity in the Communications and Media Sector," August 2006

⁴ Institute for Women's Policy Research, "Making the Right Call: Jobs and Diversity in the Communications and Media Sector," August 2006

⁵ Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, "The Glass Ceiling Persists: The 3rd Annual APPC Report on Women Leaders in Communication Companies," December 2003

⁶ Radio-Television News Directors Association, "2008 Women and Minorities Survey," July/August 2008

⁷ CBS web site, September 2008

⁸ Center for Media and Public Affairs, "Media Monitor: 2006 Year in Review," Winter 2007

⁹ Media Matters for America, "Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows," May 2007

¹⁰ Media Matters for America, "Gender and Ethnic Diversity in Prime-Time Cable News," July 2008

¹¹ American Society of Newspaper Editors, "Newsroom Employment Census," April 2008

¹² Media Management Center at Northwestern University, "Women in Media 2006," 2006

¹³ Media Matters for America, "Black and White and Re(a)d All Over: The Conservative Advantage in Syndicated Op-Ed Columns," September 2007

¹⁴ Women's eNews, "One by One, Women Count Bylines," December 2005 and Columbia Journalism Review, "Gentlemen's Club," July/August 2005

¹⁵ Radio-Television News Directors Association, "2008 Women and Minorities Survey," July/August 2008

¹⁶ Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio, "2007 Gender Analysis Study," February 2008

¹⁷ TALKERS magazine, "Heavy Hundred 2008," 2008

¹⁸ Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, "The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women in the Top 250 Films of 2007," January 2008

¹⁹ Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, "Boxed In: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in the 2007-08 Prime-time Season," 2008

²⁰ Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media, Annenberg School for Communication, "Gender Stereotypes: An Analysis of Popular Films and TV," 2008