Streaming Originals Roll Back Diversity, Narrowing Path for Creatives

Diversity takes a hit among streaming originals, while BIPOC viewers continue to drive ratings for its most-watched films

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

Streaming services continue to dominate the media landscape. In 2025, viewers watched 16.7 trillion minutes of streaming content, which was a 19 percent increase from the previous year and a record high. At the same time, about half of adult viewers are dissatisfied with the cost of streaming and cable services, according to an AP-NORC poll. Recent concerns have emerged over how inflation may affect streaming viewership and subscriptions. With recent price increases across almost all the major streaming services, consumers are feeling squeezed in a tough economy. Deloitte’s recent media trends survey found that almost three-quarters of consumers state they are frustrated with the rising subscription prices and nearly two-fifths have recently cut back on these subscriptions due to financial concerns. So, how will the major streamers compete, retain their subscribers, and gain new ones in an increasingly fragmented entertainment ecosystem? If recent developments provide a preview of the direction they are taking, then the road ahead may be difficult and limited for both creatives and Hollywood studios in the years ahead.

Today, we (along with our co-authors, Michael Tran, Jade Abston, and Nico Garcia) released the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report 2024: Part 2 Streaming — the thirteenth in a series of annual reports — that examines relationships between diversity and the bottom line among streaming original releases. Earlier this year, Part 1 focused on the top theatrical films released in 2025. For the past three years, Part 2 of the film report had considered English-language films released directly on the major streaming services that were ranked in the top 100 among total households in a given year. In 2025, however, there were fewer than 100 English-language, streaming originals released on the major streaming providers. Thus, Part 2 of the film report presents analyses regarding all 89 streaming originals films that were released in that year. As in previous years, we tracked those employed in key positions and examined the composition of the cast in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and disability among these streaming releases. We also investigated how these streaming films fared in terms of TV and social media ratings among viewers from different demographic backgrounds.

The following are this report’s key findings:

• BIPOC creatives lost ground across all key employment positions (i.e., streaming film leads, directors, writers, and total actors) among streaming films in 2025. Most notably, BIPOC leads fell to 36 percent after a high of 51 percent in 2024.
• Women also lost ground in every key employment position except for writers. Although they played the majority of streaming leads, they had reduced opportunities as directors in 2025. Streaming films directed by women fell to 23.6 percent, a low in the streaming film report series. In addition, 81 percent of films helmed by a woman, regardless of race or ethnicity, had a streaming film budget of less than $20 million.
• In 2025, comedy was the most viewed genre across most household and viewer groups. In addition, animation was the most discussed genre in terms of total social media interactions across most viewer groups in 2025.
• Following a similar pattern found in previous reports in this series, BIPOC households were overrepresented as household viewers (compared to their population share) for nine of the top 10 streaming films and for seventeen of the top 20 streaming films (ranked by total household ratings) in 2025.

Going Back to the Future

For the past few years, streaming original films seemed to be moving on a separate track from the theatrical industry. Overall, our previous reports found that top streaming films were more diverse in front of and behind the camera as compared to the top theatrical releases.¹ However, the theatrical industry did have a breakthrough in 2023 and reached a high in racial/ethnic diversity onscreen. But it was short-lived and dropped back down in 2024. Similarly, streaming original films had a dramatic decline in diversity in 2025 after experiencing a high in 2024. It is unclear if the shares of BIPOC representation will recover in a narrowing market for streaming original films on major streamers.

At the height of the streaming boom, streaming companies were greenlighting and acquiring all types of films to premiere on their platform as originals. Alongside well-known directors who were hired to helm some blockbuster-sized films, other lesser-known directors and independent filmmakers were also given opportunities to either helm a lower budget, in-house production or have their film acquired by a major streamer. Many of these directors were BIPOC and/or women who did not have the same opportunities to make a movie for wide theatrical release. The only drawback for these filmmakers was parlaying the success of their film into getting deals or future projects due to the lack of public metrics. Compared to theatrical releases, filmmakers of streaming originals do not have the ability to tout box office success. They can mention how long their film was in the top 10 shown on the streaming service. But the number of minutes watched is usually made public at a later point in time. There is no return-on-investment (ROI) figure for their film that they can point to as there would be with a major theatrical release. The equivalent for a streaming title may be subscribers acquired around the time the movie was released on the streamer, but that information is not publicly available. Thus, the experience was analogous to professional baseball where you can play in the minor leagues, but there is no guarantee that you will ever play in the major leagues.

With the reduction in producing or acquiring films to premiere on major streamers, the once imperfect path to breaking into the industry seems to be narrowing for women and BIPOC creatives. The one emerging path that may be available is through completely ad-supported streaming platforms like Tubi. In the past year, Tubi has made up around 2 percent of total streaming minutes. Tubi reports that they have 100 million monthly active users and 1 billion hours of streamed content per month, and that 58 percent of their viewers are millennials or Generation Z and nearly half are multicultural. The streamer has also committed to investing in content creators and independent filmmakers. Ultimately, major studios should consider how to gain and retain brand loyalty from a population that is increasingly BIPOC. If the major streamers want to see growth in their business, they should not roll back the gains they have made in terms of racial/ethnic and gender diversity.

Culture Rules

The juggernaut of KPop Demon Hunters permeated the cultural zeitgeist in 2025. It was such a tremendous streaming hit on Netflix that its rating of 100 points was nearly three times the rating of the second-ranked film, Happy Gilmore 2 (33.66 rating points), among total households. Viewers spent 20.6 billion minutes watching this animated film about three young women who have secret identities as demon hunters while also being a part of a world-famous K-pop girl group. According to an interview with the filmmakers, it was initially passed over by Sony for a strictly theatrical release and instead moved to Netflix to distribute due to the concern of selling a film with an all-Asian cast about K-pop to a North American audience. This sentiment by a studio is all too familiar to filmmakers pitching stories with BIPOC characters. In this case, underestimating the film backfired and likely resulted in less revenue for Sony.

Directed, written, and starring Asian women, KPop Demon Hunters is infused with cultural authenticity throughout the film. One of the filmmakers, Chris Applehans, stated: “Audiences are smart, and they are looking for—on top of maybe elemental story ideas—they’re looking for specifics. They’re looking for new flavors. And so it’s a treat to figure something out, and not just have every movie set in suburban America.” Cultural authenticity within a great story is appealing to all viewers. It was especially appealing to both women and BIPOC viewers of this film who were the drivers of its streaming success.

The intersectional nature of this film and how it connects with women of color cannot be ignored. Our analysis (in Table 4, “The Bottom Line”) showed that females within a Latino household matched this film’s highest rating of 100 points, and the next two highest ratings came from females within Asian (77.33 points) and Black (72.85 points) households. Furthermore, for the fourth year in a row, a young woman of color led the most watched streaming film. The previous three films and the corresponding years when they took the top spot were as follows: Encanto (2022), Turning Red (2023), and Moana (2024). In 2025, women of color leads were just below proportionate representation in streaming films. With continued rollback of BIPOC representation, major streamers may lose profitability potential and audience engagement from a key segment of the market.

In the 2026 Tubi and Harris Poll of streaming viewers, they found that over three-quarters (76 percent) of adult respondents prefer original content over remakes or franchise extensions (78 percent for Generation Z), which was up 12 percent over the previous year. In addition, more than three-fourths (77 percent) of adult respondents want to see diversity and representation when they stream (79 percent for Generation Z), which was up 5 percent over the previous year and 9 percent since 2024. Lastly, over three-quarters (76 percent) of adult respondents want more programming from independent or smaller creators. Additionally, in a 2024 survey by Deloitte, almost 70 percent of Black consumers as well as more than half of Asian, multiracial, Hispanic, and Latino consumers responded that “it’s important to [them] that TV shows and movies are written and produced by diverse creative teams.” The viewers know what they want. So, will the major Hollywood streamers provide it, or will they regress? Stepping back no longer guarantees “safety.” Instead, it halts growth and expansion. Leave the status quo in the past, because the future is already here.