ReFrame Report Shows Decline in Gender-Balanced Hiring for Top TV Series in 2025-2026 Season

Gender-balanced hiring on television’s most popular series slipped during the 2025-2026 television season, according to a new annual report from ReFrame, the initiative founded by the Sundance Institute and WIF. The report, released in collaboration with WIF, found that only 42 of the season’s top 100 series received the organization’s ReFrame Stamp, a designation awarded to productions that meet specific benchmarks for hiring women, nonbinary and trans people in key roles. That marks a decline of three percentage points from the previous year, when 45 productions earned the distinction.

The findings have prompted concern among industry advocates who see the numbers as evidence of a broader slowdown in progress. “It confirms what I think a lot of people are witnessing, experiencing, which is that we are backsliding on gender balance,” said Kirsten Schaffer, CEO of WIF, in an interview. Her words reflect a growing unease that the entertainment industry, after years of increased attention to inclusive hiring, is beginning to lose momentum.

ReFrame has been tracking representation in television and film since its founding in 2017. The organization awards its stamp to productions that demonstrate “sufficient numbers” of women, nonbinary and trans people in significant roles. The criteria cover a wide range of positions, including showrunner, lead actor, co-lead actor, director and various department heads. To determine eligibility, ReFrame uses a point system that weighs how many key roles are filled by underrepresented gender groups. Productions must earn enough points to qualify for the stamp, and the process is designed to offer a clear, transparent framework for evaluating hiring practices.

Schaffer noted that the stamp’s requirements are not meant to be unreachable. “We think we’ve made it relatively easy to get and so the fact that the numbers are moving backward rather than forwards is really an issue,” she said. “We’re looking for forward progress.” She also pushed back against the idea that the decline could be explained by industry contraction, pointing out that the rankings are based on percentages, not raw numbers. “Even though there are fewer television shows being made right now across the industry, this is based on percentages, so the percentages should still stay there,” she added.

One of the most striking findings in this year’s report concerns lead roles. The study found that only 39 women, nonbinary or trans people played lead roles in the season’s most popular series. That figure represents the lowest number in seven years and marks a noticeable drop from the previous television season, when 44 such performers were cast in leads. The decline is especially notable because lead representation has often been seen as a bellwether for broader industry trends.

The report also highlighted a decrease in the representation of women of color and nonbinary and trans people of color in co-lead roles. During the 2024-2025 television season, 55 percent of the top 100 series included at least one woman of color, nonbinary person of color or trans person of color in a crucial supporting role. In the 2025-2026 season, that share fell to 47 percent. The drop suggests that the lack of progress is not evenly distributed and that marginalized communities within the broader category of underrepresented gender groups may be facing even greater barriers.

Behind the camera, the results were more complicated. The percentage of showrunners who are women, nonbinary or trans people ticked up slightly, from 29 in the previous season to 31 in the latest season. While that increase is welcome, the numbers remain low, underscoring how underrepresented these groups still are in one of the most powerful positions on a television series. The report also found gains among writers, with the number of series that had at least half their episodes written by women or nonbinary people rising from 49 to 51. But directing numbers moved in the opposite direction. Only 32 series had at least half their episodes directed by women or nonbinary people in the 2025-2026 season, down from 38 in the prior season.

The report’s findings on crew hiring were similarly mixed. Representation dipped for first assistant directors, falling by seven percent, and also declined for production designers, down four percent, and directors of photography, down three percent. However, there were notable gains in other crew categories. Stunt coordinators saw a 12 percent increase, composers rose by two percent, and visual effects supervisors improved by three percent. These mixed results suggest that gender-balanced hiring is not moving uniformly across all departments, and that certain areas may require more focused attention.

A key theme of the ReFrame report has long been the importance of women showrunners. Having a woman showrunner is highly predictive of whether a series will achieve gender balance overall. This past season, 87 percent of the series that received the ReFrame Stamp had a woman showrunner. That is a slight decline from the previous season, when nearly 93 percent of stamped series were led by a woman showrunner. Still, the connection remains strong, and the report suggests that investing in women showrunners is one of the most effective ways to improve representation across a production.

The report also found that gender-balanced series fared slightly better in terms of renewal and cancellation. Among first-season series that received the stamp, 24 out of 27, or 89 percent, were renewed. By contrast, 38 of 45 series that did not receive the stamp, or 84 percent, were renewed. The gap was also visible in cancellations: of the eleven series cancelled during the 2024-2025 television season, four had earned the ReFrame Stamp while seven had not. While the sample sizes are relatively small, the pattern suggests that gender-balanced hiring is not a detriment to a show’s success and may even be associated with greater stability.

The release of this year’s report adds to a growing body of evidence that progress on gender parity in television has stalled, or in some cases reversed. Industry observers note that the contraction in overall content production, driven by streaming platform consolidation and tighter budgets, may be contributing to a more conservative approach to hiring. But Schaffer’s comments make clear that ReFrame considers the current trajectory unacceptable. The organization has positioned the stamp as a practical tool for measuring and encouraging change, and this year’s findings are likely to renew calls for more deliberate action from networks, studios and production companies.

The full list of ReFrame Stamp recipients for the 2025-2026 television season includes a diverse range of series across streaming platforms and broadcast networks. Among the honorees are 56 Days (Amazon Prime Video), All Her Fault (Peacock), Ballard (Amazon Prime Video), Bridgerton (Netflix), Down Cemetery Road (Apple TV), Euphoria (HBO), Fallout (Amazon Prime Video), Gen V (Amazon Prime Video), Ginny & Georgia (Netflix), High Potential (ABC), His & Hers (Netflix), and How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (Netflix).

Other recipients include Industry (HBO Max), Ironheart (Disney+), IT: Welcome to Derry (HBO), Leanne (Netflix), Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (Hulu), Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV), Nobody Wants This (Netflix), Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), Ponies (Peacock), Scarpetta (Amazon Prime Video), Something Very Bad is Going to Happen (Netflix), Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Paramount+), and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+).

The list also includes Task (HBO), The Bear (Hulu), The Beast in Me (Netflix), The Boys (Amazon Prime Video), The Diplomat (Netflix), The Gilded Age (HBO), The Girlfriend (Amazon Prime Video), The Hunting Wives (Netflix), The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix), The Madison (Paramount+), The Miniature Wife (Peacock), The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video), The Testaments (Hulu), Wayward (Netflix), We Were Liars (Amazon Prime Video), Wednesday (Netflix), and Wonder Man (Disney+).

ReFrame’s findings arrive at a moment when diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the entertainment industry are facing renewed scrutiny. Some companies have pulled back from public commitments, while others have quietly changed their reporting practices. Against that backdrop, the organization’s insistence on transparency and accountability is especially significant. The stamp program is intended not only to celebrate productions that get it right, but also to create a measurable standard that can be tracked over time. This year’s report, with its mix of setbacks and modest gains, makes clear that the work is far from finished.

Schaffer’s message is direct: the industry must do better. The ReFrame Stamp has been positioned as an attainable goal, one that any production can reach with deliberate effort. And as the report shows, reaching that goal has tangible benefits, from better renewal odds to a more inclusive working environment. For now, the 2025-2026 season stands as a warning that progress cannot be taken for granted. Without continued attention and proactive hiring practices, the modest gains of recent years could be lost altogether. The report is likely to spark conversations across Hollywood about what it will take to reverse the backslide and ensure that gender balance remains a priority in the seasons to come.