How Many Women In Late Night? 10 Stark Statistics About Gender & Writers Rooms
- Julianne Simitz
- Jul 18, 2017
- 4 min read
When it comes to writing staff and hosts, Late Night shows are doing a number on women. "How many women in late night television are writers?" you ask. We've got some answers based on ten popular U.S. based Late Night television shows.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To give a larger sense of women in broadcast television, women comprise 32% of writers, compared to 29% percent in cable, and 25% for shows streamed on the Internet.
Pretty abysmal. Until you look closer at the 11:35 p.m. time slot—and find out it’s even worse.
A SNAPSHOT OF LATE NIGHT WRITERS AS A WHOLE
Consider that, in 2017, of approximately 213 Late Night writers, only 39 were women. That’s less than 19%—significantly lower than the number of female television writers overall. Of those women, only eight are women of color.
It’s no secret that most Late Night shows feature male hosts—and largely male showrunners and writers—usually of the straight, white “variety.” And it’s not unique to conservative-leaning or even mainstream network shows. Even our favorite progressives struggle putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to gender and, let’s be honest, racial diversity in the writers room.
For example, as of July 2017, only three out of 19 writers credited on The Daily Show are women. That’s less than 16%--even worse than the average Late Night show. After correspondent Jessica Williams’ departure last year, TDS now has only one on-screen female correspondent on a team of seven.
Even worse, liberal firebrand Bill Maher has ZERO WOMEN credited as writers on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. The show has only hired one woman staff writer during its 15-season run. Some days it feels like little has changed since Nell Scovell called out David Letterman in Vanity Fair...and that was more than a decade ago.
And let's be clear. It’s not just numbers, for numbers sake...although #wewant50! Representation matters. Everything from tone to topics are hurt when women are absent from the room.
A LIST: TEN DAMNING DISPARITIES IN LATE NIGHT WRITERS ROOMS
For a quick overview of funny women spanning ten Late Night shows, check out this percentage breakdown by show and the list that follows with a breakdown of male/female ratios by show*
*The graph, list, and numbers regarding gender parity below are presented and ranked as a top ten list in order of parity by credited writers of ten commercially popular late night shows in the mainstream U.S. media. This information was gathered from public data and does not include any unpublished data or recent changes, nor is it a intended to be a comprehensive list of all late night television comedy shows.
#1 Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
Total credited writers: 10
# Men: 6
# Women: 4
40% Women Writers
#2 Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live (NBC)
Total credited writers: 30
# Men: 22
# Women: 8
26% Women Writers
#3 The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC) Total credited writers: 25
# Men: 20
# Women: 5
25% Women Writers
#4 Late Night With Seth Meyers
Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC) Total credited writers: 17
# Men: 14
# Women: 3
18% Women Writers
#5 Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
Total credited writers: 11
# Men: 9
# Women: 2 18% Women Writers
#6 The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Total credited writers: 19
# Men: 16
# Women: 3
16% Women Writers
#7 The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
Total credited writers: 19
# Men: 16
# Women: 3
16% Women Writers
#8 Chelsea
Chelsea (Netflix) Total credited writers: 7 # Men: 6
# Women: 1
14% Women Writers
#9 Conan
Conan (TBS)
Total credited writers: 16
# Men: 14
# Women: 2
13% Women Writers
#10 Real Time With Bill Maher
Total credited writers: 10
# Men: 10
# Women: 0
0% Women Writers
There is no shortage of talented women writing and creating hilarious web series and podcasts, performing at the hottest festivals, and wowing crowds on improv stages and comedy clubs across the country. So what's the deal, networks and showrunners? Writers rooms need women’s voices--not because of quotas or tweet storms or Jezebel thinkpieces--but because it’s better comedy and, ultimately, better business. When all's said and done, women aren't asking for special treatment, just equal consideration. The struggle is real, but we’re not going anywhere.
Julianne Simitz (@DCjulesdoesLA) is a Hollywood-based standup comedian and co-creator, executive producer, and head writer of her own Late Night show, Bad News (@BadNewsLive). In a previous life, Julianne was a pinko commie operative for progressive causes in our nation’s capital. In 2013, she founded The Clitorati (@theclitorati), a now 450-woman-strong comedy collective for standups, sketch writers, storytellers, and TV writers in Los Angeles. Julianne loves empowering women to kick the patriarchy’s ass. And in case it comes up, she loathes the word moist.
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