Diversity Study Shows Prevalence of Straight White Men in Power

Ahead of entertainment’s most exclusive and glamorous night of the year, The Oscars, a new study demonstrates just how exclusive film and television can be when it comes to women, people of color and the LGBT community. The results reveal that the prequel to #OscarsSoWhite is #HollywoodSoWhite.

The Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity (CARD) is the first of its kind — an exhaustive analysis and ranking of film, television and digital streaming services that catalogues speaking characters, people behind the camera, CEOs and executives.

Authored by professor Stacy L. Smith and released by the Media, Diversity & Social Change (MDSC) Initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the analysis found that only 28.3% of all speaking characters across 414 films, television and digital episodes in 2014-15 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This is 9.6% below the U.S. population norm of 37.9%. One-third (33.5%) of speaking characters were female. Behind the camera, a mere 15.2% of all directors and 28.9% of writers across film and every episode of television and digital series were female. Less than one-quarter (22.6%) of series creators were women across broadcast, cable and streaming content.

“This is no mere diversity problem. This is an inclusion crisis,” said Smith, Founding Director of the MDSC Initiative. “Over half of the content we examined features no Asian or Asian-American characters, and over 20% featured no African-American characters. It is clear that the ecosystem of entertainment is exclusionary.”

UP TV Releases Nielsen Study on Importance of Family-Friendly Environments to Advertisers

A Nielsen study commissioned by UP TV and released today by UP in cooperation with Mediavest confirms that the unique relationship viewers have with family-friendly media outlets can benefit advertisers. Family viewers have greater trust and stronger purchase intent for brands advertised in family-friendly programming environments.

The study quantified the number of viewers seeking family-friendly programming as approximately 42 million. "Family Viewers" are much more likely to seek wholesome programming for watching in a group or family setting. They watch shows that are in sync with their values and they want to be informed, inspired and uplifted by the shows they watch.

"This in-depth study confirms the value of family-friendly audiences as previously identified in studies done by the Association of National Advertisers and others," said Ron Plante, senior vice president, research, UP. "At the same time, it goes beyond validating what we already believed and sheds new light on an issue that, at its core, addresses how brands can maximize their TV budgets."

Nielsen Study: Tweets Found To Have Greatest Effect on TV Tune-In Rates in Competitive Reality Genre

Social media and TV programming have become fast friends, and, for many of us, the two are transforming how we watch television. In fact, Twitter has become a popular destination where fans can talk about their favorite TV shows in real-time. But do tweets drive consumers to tune-in to a program, or are viewers just chatting about shows they’re already watching?

The answer is both. A new independent study by Nielsen provides, for the first time, statistical evidence of a two-way causal influence between broadcast TV tune-in for a program and the Twitter conversation around that program. The study used time series analysis to determine if Twitter activity drives increased tune-in rates for broadcast TV and if broadcast TV tune-in leads to increased Twitter activity. By analyzing minute-to-minute trends in Nielsen’s live TV ratings and tweets for 221 broadcast primetime program episodes using Nielsen’s SocialGuide, the study found that live TV ratings had a meaningful impact in related tweets among 48 percent of the episodes sampled. The results also showed that the volume of tweets caused significant changes in live TV ratings among 29 percent of the episodes.

NEWS: Jackie Zeman, Parker Posey, Sean Maguire, Hannah Murray, Terrence Howard, Michelle Forbes, Michael Vartan

GENERAL HOSPITAL's Jackie Zeman savors memories of growing up in Bergen County, New Jersey
Zeman, who is best-known to soap opera fans as Bobbie Spencer on GH, grew up in Bergenfield. It was there that she and her two younger sisters, Lauren and Carol, developed their interests and lasting friendships. It was there that Zeman first felt inspired to follow the adventurous spirit she inherited from her father.

"I remember growing up and looking at my mom and my dad — my mom was the one who watched us while he went to work every day, but I remember thinking, 'He's having all the fun,' " said Zeman, 60.

Parker Posey On Grace of Monaco and Her AS THE WORLD TURNS Days
"I saw Colleen Zink, who played my aunt a few years ago -- I hadn't seen her for 15 years -- and she still looked the same. The actors on that show were fab. I wish I could go back and do more -- that would be a hoot."

New MTV Study Shows Sharp Differences Between Younger and Older Millennials

MTV, a division of Viacom, today unveiled the results of its new landmark generational study, "The New Millennials Will Keep Calm and Carry On," investigating the shifting dynamics between younger and older Millennials in the United States. Building upon MTV's legacy of deeply understanding its audience and constantly reinventing, today's results uncover that younger Millennials (ages 13-17) are different from their older counterparts in key ways: beginning to map their careers at 13, absorbing the advice of pragmatic Gen X parents, and adjusting the rules of how and when to use technology - even unplugging and mono-tasking to de-stress.

New Study Confirms Correlation Between Twitter and TV Ratings

U.S. TV viewers are taking to Twitter to talk about TV, and the digital chatter is building steam. According to SocialGuide, 32 million unique people in the U.S. Tweeted about TV in 2012. That’s quite the confab, but what does it all really mean for the TV industry? Should networks and advertisers be paying attention? Early research on the subject from Nielsen and SocialGuide says yes.

By analyzing Tweets about live TV, the study confirmed a relationship between Twitter and TV ratings. It also identified Twitter as one of three statistically significant variables (in addition to prior-year rating and advertising spend) to align with TV ratings.