America's media and entertainment industries have a diversity problem in their leadership ranks, at least insofar as how they’re perceived by the public.
A recent study by insights platform Owler analyzed and compared people’s diversity perceptions of corporate leadership teams across various U.S. industries in the public and private sector, and found that media and entertainment came in 14th out of 17 different industries ranked.
The average diversity perception for companies within that sector was more than eight percent lower than the median perception score for other industries, according to the study.
 |
Other industries to achieve low-ranking diversity perceptions included professional services (number-13), industrial goods and services (number-15) and telecommunications, which was second-to-last, taking the number-16 spot. Bottoming out the list was the real estate and construction sector.
By contrast, the industries that boasted the public's highest-rated diversity perceptions included the retail sector, which took the number-one spot, followed by transportation and warehousing, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, travel/leisure and the aerospace and defense industries.
The study, which rated only the public’s perception of corporate diversity across various industries in the U.S., didn’t analyze how diverse these organizations’ leadership teams actually are.
Owler’s 2017 Perceptions of Corporate Leadership Team Diversity report polled 11,700 stakeholders based on a dataset of more than 1,100 public and private companies, utilizing the company's own proprietary algorithm.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
