Gender-balanced hiring on television’s most popular series dipped during the 2025-2026 season, ReFrame found in its latest annual report in collaboration with WIF.
Forty-two of the season’s top 100 series were awarded the organization’s designation for gender-balanced productions, down three percent from the year prior, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
“It confirms what I think a lot of people are witnessing, experiencing, which is that we are backsliding on gender balance,” said WIF CEO Kirsten Schaffer in an interview.
The organization, which was founded by the Sundance Institute and WIF in 2017, awards its “ReFrame Stamp” to TV productions that hire sufficient numbers of women or nonbinary or trans people in significant roles such as showrunner, lead actor, co-lead actor, director and various heads of department. The organization uses a point system to determine eligibility.
Added Schaffer of ReFrame’s system, “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. We’re looking for forward progress.”
She added, “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.”
This year’s report found a clear decrease in the representation of women, nonbinary and trans people in major roles. Only 39 women or nonbinary or trans people played lead roles in the season’s top series, which represented the lowest number in seven years (and in the previous television season, the number was 44).
The depiction of women of color and nonbinary and trans people of color in co-lead roles also decreased: In the 2024-2025 television season 55 percent of the most popular series contained at least one of woman of color, nonbinary or trans person of color in crucial supporting roles, whereas this latest season only 47 percent of series did.
Behind the camera, the report showed a mixed bag for gender-balanced hiring. The percentage of showrunners ticked up slightly but also demonstrates how underrepresented women and nonbinary and trans people remain in the role (this latest season 31 identified in that category, as opposed to the previous season’s 29). Representation among writers increased (the number of series that had at least half their episodes written by women or nonbinary people rose from 49 in the previous season to 51 in the latest season) while that among directors decreased (series with at least half their episodes helmed by this group dropped from 38 series in 2024-2025 to 32 in 2025-2026).
On the crew, representation dipped for first assistant directors (by seven percent), production designers (four percent) and directors of photography (three percent) but rose for stunt coordinators (12 percent), composers (two percent) and visual effects supervisors (three percent).
As ReFrame has reported before, a woman showrunner is highly predictive of having a gender-balanced series. This past season, 87 percent of the series awarded the organizations’ Stamp had a woman showrunner, while the previous season it was nearly 93 percent.
The report also found that gender-balanced series were slightly more likely to be renewed and less prone to cancellation. Of 27 first-season series that received the Stamp, 24, or 89 percent, were renewed, compared with 38 of 45 series, or 84 percent, that did not receive the Stamp. Eleven shows were cancelled in the 2024-2025 television, four awarded the Stamp and seven not.
See the full list of recipients of ReFrame’s Stamp from the 2025-2026 television season below.
56 Days / Amazon Prime Video: Season 1
All Her Fault / Peacock: Season 1
Ballard / Amazon Prime Video: Season 1
Bridgerton / Netflix: Season 4
Down Cemetery Road / Apple TV: Season 1
Euphoria / HBO: Season 3
Fallout / Amazon Prime Video: Season 2
Gen V / Amazon Prime Video: Season 2
Ginny & Georgia / Netflix: Season 3
High Potential / ABC: Season 2
His & Hers / Netflix: Season 1
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast / Netflix: Season 1
Industry / HBO Max: Season 4
Ironheart / Disney+: Season 1
IT: Welcome to Derry / HBO: Season 1
Leanne / Netflix: Season 1
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette / Hulu: Season 1
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters / Apple TV: Season 2
Nobody Wants This / Netflix: Season 2
Only Murders in the Building / Hulu: Season 5
Ponies / Peacock: Season 1
Scarpetta / Amazon Prime Video: Season 1
Something Very Bad is Going to Happen / Netflix: Season 1
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy / Paramount+: Season 1
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds / Paramount+: Season 3
Task / HBO: Season 1
The Bear / Hulu: Season 4
The Beast in Me / Netflix: Season 1
The Boys / Amazon Prime Video: Season 5
The Diplomat / Netflix: Season 3
The Gilded Age / HBO: Season 3
The Girlfriend / Amazon Prime Video: Season 1
The Hunting Wives / Netflix: Season 1
The Lincoln Lawyer / Netflix: Season 4
The Madison / Paramount+: Season 1
The Miniature Wife / Peacock: Season 1
The Summer I Turned Pretty / Amazon Prime Video: Season 3
The Testaments / Hulu: Season 1
Wayward / Netflix: Season 1
We Were Liars / Amazon Prime Video: Season 1
Wednesday / Netflix: Season 2
Wonder Man / Disney+: Season 1
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter