Gracenote Debuts On-Screen Diversity Measure

Nielsen's media and entertainment data provider Gracenote has launched a solution to analyse the gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation of talent appearing in TV programming and the audiences watching it, which it says will help the entertainment industry to create more inclusive content.

Emeryville, California-based Gracenote provides descriptions of more than 100 million tracks, TV listings for 85+ countries and statistics spanning more than 70 sports and 300,000 competitions per year. Its new 'Gracenote Inclusion Analytics' has been developed to provide content creators, owners, distributors and advertisers with data around on-screen diversity and representation.

The solution combines Gracenote Global Video program metadata and Studio System celebrity race and ethnicity data with Nielsen Television Ratings and Nielsen SVOD Content Ratings data. Based on these inputs, the service delivers new proprietary metrics assessing the degree to which different identity groups are featured in programming and how evenly this reflects viewing audiences. These metrics are: 'Share of Screen', to quantify an identity group's representation among talent; the Inclusion Opportunity Index, comparing share of screen for an identity group to their representation in population estimates; and the Inclusion Audience Index, which compares share of screen for a group to their representation in the program's audience.

Sandra Sims-Williams (pictured), Nielsen's SVP, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, comments: 'The entertainment industry has a massive challenge ahead - to ensure the talent associated with popular TV programming mirrors today's increasingly diverse viewing audiences. By democratizing information around representation in content, Gracenote Inclusion Analytics holds the power to push the industry toward better balance and a more equitable future.'

Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.gracenote.com .