Hollywood loses $30 billion by not engaging diverse audiences

Over the past 4 years, McKinsey & Company has produced three separate reports showing that Hollywood has actually lost $30 billion by failing to have interaction in diversified business solutions. Hollywood’s failure to have interaction the Black, Latino, and Asian American/Pacific Islander communities in various ways has cost the film industry $10 billion, $12 billion to $18 billion, and $2 billion to $4.4 billion, respectively.

According to reports, there are significant discrepancies within the representation of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Hollywood. Asian a part of the designation received many of the representation. At the identical time, five Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander men remained, most notably Jason Momoa and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

In an April report, McKinsey Company authors note that corporations are leaving billions of dollars on the table by not meaningfully engaging diverse audiences. “As our research and analyzes have shown, management staff do not have to be guided by altruism,” they write. “The reward for getting the job done right can make a real impact on the industry – and the reward will only get bigger. Progress may not be easy, but when increased storytelling richness is accompanied by multi-billion dollar opportunities, the business case is clear.”

In 2021, McKinsey’s report on the shortage of Black representation pointed to sparse representation in off-camera roles, and a Black executive who spoke with McKinsey indicated that the shortage of diversity has spilled over into project production as well. “Many former studio executives receive production deals as studio-affiliated independent producers, so any inequity within the studios will be passed on to other producers.”

A Black author described the problem of finding an agent, especially one with connections to Black people, telling McKinsey: “Even though I was working on a popular and well-received show, finding an agent was still difficult. Your average agent is a 50-year-old white guy… who has never had to stretch to see (himself) in other people or spaces. So it will be more difficult for (such agents) to represent people with whom they have no personal contact.”

In March, McKinsey assessed the same devaluation of Latinx representation each in front of and behind the camera, and as one Latinx producer told the firm: “There is no shortage of actors. Almost a surplus of writers. The broken part is the business side: they don’t know how to support and promote content created by Latinos.”

Additionally, the report’s authors directly linked the roles of black and Latino off-screen talent; each groups inevitably have the duty of providing work for members of their ethnic groups.

“As with Black representation in film and television, Latinos who are rising to prominence in the industry play a huge role in providing opportunities for other Latino talent: on average, a Latino producer, writer or lead is 15 times more likely to sign a project more if the director or showrunner is Latino,” the authors wrote. “Considering that only 5 percent of films have Latino directors and 1 to 5 percent of TV and streaming shows have Latino showrunners, the ceiling for opportunities for Latinos is low.”