the CNC takes stock of parity in fiction, and we are still far from the mark

Series, TV films, fiction… The National Cinema Center has done the math, and parity has still not been there in 2022.

They are more present, but less well paid. This is, in a few words, the observation of the gender equality observatory of the National Cinema Center (CNC), which takes stock of the place of women in television fiction productions for 2022.

The first lesson is that we are no longer very far from parity: women represent 44% of the workforce in television fiction production. A figure driven by their strong presence in the artistic direction, costumes, sets… Which has always been the case. The new thing is that they are more and more often directors or authors. 969 directed or wrote (or both) an audiovisual work last year, or 39% of the total. The increase is more than five points in six years.

Public channels take a big step forward

This progression is largely due to public channels, which clearly display a desire to feminize the profession, especially production. France Télévisions, for example, introduced a quota system in 2020. Result: the share of female directors in fiction produced by Delphine Ernotte’s group now reaches 41%. This is 10.6 points more than in 2016. A spectacular jump also on the side of Arte: + 12.5 points to reach almost 38%, when the other groups are regressing on this point. The trend is the same for female authors, even if it is TF1 which employs the most of them.

Conversely, other professions remain very male-dominated. 69% of music composers are men, as are 77% of image technicians. Women represent only 21% of stunt performers and only 11% of sound technicians are female technicians. So to achieve parity, since this year the National Cinema Center has required producers to specify who occupies each position. The idea is to then award financial aid to good students.

Still far from being counted on pay slips

In addition to the workforce, you also have to look at the pay slips. Pay parity is not respected at all in TV dramas. There are salary gaps in all technical professions, to the disadvantage of women of course. A female image technician earns 27% less than her male colleague, 24% less for a sound technician or a director. Better to do a voice-over: there, a woman earns 25% more than a man.

Finally there are jobs, not many, which make no difference between genders: music composer and, unlike in cinema, actor and actress. Actresses are as well paid as men, or even better for certain age groups. Those aged 40-49, for example, have a salary 22% higher than that of their male counterparts in their forties.