Connections

EES 2021: What’s Next for Gracenote Inclusion Analytics

Gracenote Inclusion Analytics were recently expanded to the full market in the U.S. and an international expansion is planned for next year, according to Maryl Curran Widdows, VP of product – inclusion analytics at Nielsen.

The company started looking into the creation of diversity data last summer amid the conversation that ramped up around social and racial justice, she recalled on July 21, during the Diversity & Virtual breakout session “Mining for Gold with Diversity Data” at the inaugural, all-virtual Entertainment Evolution Symposium (EES) event.

“We know that we’re sitting on a mountain of data about what’s happening in content and what’s happening in audiences [and] this data can benefit the entire ecosystem,” she said.

With that in mind, “there are a couple of business trends that are really key to talk about right now,” she said. First, the calls for more inclusivity and diversity across the sector are “heard wide and far,” she noted. Meanwhile, “our population is increasingly becoming more diverse and we know that multicultural content or content that is relevant and resonates with diverse audiences is no longer niche because our general market is a multicultural market,” she pointed out.

The M&E sector has perpetuated harmful stereotypes and narratives but now has the opportunity to combat those stereotypes and move society forward with the help of diversity data, she said.

“We also know that audiences are actively seeking more inclusive content,” she noted, adding: “We can see it in our audience data. People are dropping subscriptions, picking them up, moving [them around] and we know that platforms with strong representation, that have diversity first as a strategy are seeing new viewers and gaining diverse viewers and gaining viewers from the general market as a whole.”

Gracenote Inclusion Analytics, introduced in February, currently includes data on the diversity of on-screen talent and that data can be compared with data on the diversity of audiences and society at large, she noted, adding: “We will partner to make the media ecosystem more inclusive because we know inclusion is the foundation of a healthy ecosystem.”

What’s Next

During the Q&A, she noted that Gracenote Inclusion Analytics is available in the U.S. only now but “we will be expanding internationally next year.”

Also planned is the addition of data on diversity behind the scenes, she said, explaining: “We will be adding in kind of behind-the-screen and below-the-line data…. By the end of the year, we’ll have that creator view available for you. That’s an area of big focus right now, as well as executives in the companies – anybody who’s involved in deciding what content can come to market or providing even feedback and notes to the creators as shows are running, making sure that diversity is present all the way throughout the pipeline, from greenlighting and creation to actually creating the content and production to the feedback that is informing what direction the creator goes, to the folks who are acquiring content and library content and distributing it.”

That is needed because “diversity needs to be present throughout the ecosystem,” she said. Fortunately, “there are some fantastic groups that are really working and partnering on developing those talent pipelines,” she noted.

Diversity Data

She also shared some diversity data with viewers. For one thing, while women make up 52% of the U.S. population, they only made up a 43% share of who we saw on screen last year, she said. That is a big increase from 38% in 2019 but it’s “still disappointing to see what a big gap there is” still, she noted, adding that, for racial and ethnic minority women, the share is even worse.

Members of the LGBTQ, meanwhile, are “less likely to be seen on screen than men,” she said, noting there are “big gaps there.” But the largest on-screen share gap is between white men and white women, she said, pointing out it’s 12% more for men.

Hispanics only made up a 6% share of screen time despite representing 19% of the U.S. population, while Asians are the fastest growing minority population in the U.S. but had a very low 4% visibility on screen, she said.

The top TV genres for people of color when it comes to broadcast TV is reality, while for cable it’s sitcoms and for subscription video on demand (SVOD) it’s dramas, she went on to say.

Video descriptors reveal stereotypes, she also said, noting race and ethnicity are driving streaming choices and ad-based video on demand (AVOD), the fastest growing sector of the streaming video market, is driving extraordinary diversity.

The Diversity Opportunity

The “bottom line” when it comes to business impact is that “diverse content is an opportunity,” she told viewers.

“There’s so much opportunity to bring more people into television” and that “translates into higher viewership,” she pointed out.

Kicking off the session, Simon Adams, chief product officer at Gracenote, said: “Our goal is to help the content and distribution piece of the entertainment lifecycle…. We historically have been driving the discovery side but we want to move up the value chain and help with insights to help in terms of distribution, in terms of content production, in terms of acquisition and in terms of sales.”

The Entertainment Evolution Symposium event was produced by the Hollywood IT Society (HITS), Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School, and MESA. The event was sponsored by Whip Media, PacketFabric, 5th Kind, Qumulo, EIDR, Klio and the Trusted Partner Network.