Gracenote, Nielsen’s content metadata unit said it added a Diversity Spotlight feature to its Studio System that will make diverse content creators and talent more discoverable and accessible.
Gracenote worked with the advocacy groups IllumiNative, Gold House, RespectAbility, National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) and Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE) to develop the system to meet diversity criteria and open new casting, funding and collaboration opportunities.
“In conversations with the industry, we’ve heard repeatedly that difficulty finding diverse creators to work with and inclusive projects to bring to screens is slowing the transformation everyone agrees is needed,” said Trent Wheeler, Gracenote’s chief product officer. “The expertise of our advocacy group partners, combined with the unmatched scale of Gracenote data and the reach of Studio System, holds the promise to accelerate representative content creation and bring real change to Hollywood.”
Also Read: Nielsen’s Gracenote Providing Data on On-Screen Diversity
Despite pledges to improve diversity, equity and inclusion, people of color, people with disabilities as well as members of the LGBTQIA community remain underrepresented in TV content, Gracenote said.
For example, Latinx representation in programming is only 5.7% although the group makes up 20% of the U.S. population, according to Gracenote Inclusion Analytics data. Representation of disabled people is only 6.6% even though one in four Americans has a disability.
“As we are working to drive representation of Native talent and projects in entertainment, a solution like Gracenote Diversity Spotlight takes our work to the next level — where Native creatives can be discovered with a tool that is already a trusted source for the decision-makers in the industry,” Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO and founder of IllumiNative, said.
