U.S. TV diversity content peaked in 2021–2022, then fell sharply by 2025. Luminate data shows Latinx and disability stories have virtually disappeared. As streaming market contraction collides with political headwinds, the diversity ecosystem in and around Hollywood is being shaken to its roots — while the rise of FAST shifts the weight of U.S. TV toward advertiser-friendly formats.

Hollywood, which pledged its commitment to diversity in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020, is reversing course — and it has taken less than five years.

Year-end data from Luminate Film & TV, combined with the latest findings from UCLA and GLAAD, shows that Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and disability stories are declining simultaneously in U.S. scripted TV, posting the steepest drop since the 'peak diversity' years of 2021–2022.

할리우드 다양성, 5년 만에 역주행… K‑콘텐츠와 공진화에 열린 새 창

2020년 이후 다양성이 정점에 올랐덧, 미국 TV는 2025년 라틴계·장애인 스토리 0편까지 떨어지며 구조적 후퇴 흐름. 동시 FAST, 유튜브·크리에이터 경제·공동 제작 네트워크의 부상으로 다음 다양성 물결의 무게추가 한국·동남아·아프리카·유럽으로 이동. K‑콘텐츠와 글로벌 파트너가 함께 판을 설계하는 공진화 전략이 필요한 시점 시사

K-EnterTech HubJung Han

A shrinking production slate, the rollback of DEI policies under the second Trump administration, and an advertising market that increasingly prizes brand safety have converged to push diversity off Hollywood's list of top priorities.

There is, however, one notable countertrend: women-centered stories. Series focused on female characters' experiences and perspectives grew from 32 titles in 2019 to 58 in 2025.

At the same time, the vacuum left by Hollywood is cracking open a rare window for stories produced outside the United States — K-content, African and Latin American narratives, YouTube-based creator IP — to enter the global stage.

Taken together, the rise of FAST, AI, and the creator economy, alongside the expanding role of public broadcasters and global co-production networks, suggests that the next wave of diverse content may not start inside Hollywood at all.

Instead, it may emerge from a new coalition spanning Korea, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe — a shift that signals the moment for K-content and K-entertainment tech to design a deliberate co-evolution strategy with global partners.

2025: Diversity Content Hits a Record Low

The share of diverse content among new U.S. TV titles fell to approximately 35% in 2025 — down from a peak of 43% in 2023, just two years earlier. Across the eight diversity categories tracked by Luminate Film & TV — Black, Asian, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Disability, Indigenous, Women-Centered, and Feminist — Latinx stories dropped from 14 titles in 2022 to zero in 2025.

Disability stories also reached zero. Black stories fell to 40 titles in 2025, less than half the 2021 peak of 96. LGBTQ+ stories have been in continuous decline since their 2021–2022 high, according to GLAAD tracking.

The numbers represent more than a statistical correction. They signal the effective dismantling of the DEI agenda that spread across Hollywood following George Floyd's death — an agenda that is now losing force just five years on. Luminate estimates the total number of new U.S. scripted TV titles fell 11% year-over-year in 2025, with diversity projects — perceived as higher risk — cut first.

Three structural headwinds account for the decline: the contraction of the streaming market, the political reversal of DEI policy under the second Trump administration, and the reshaping of advertising around brand-safe content. Together, they have made diversity an optional line item rather than a strategic imperative for studios and platforms.

Why Now: Three Structural Causes

1. Streaming Contraction: The End of Peak TV

2022 was a watershed year for the U.S. streaming industry. Netflix reported its first-ever net loss of 200,000 subscribers in Q1 — shattering the myth of perpetual streaming growth. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount all followed with sweeping cuts to content budgets and production volume. The 'Peak TV' era that FX president John Landgraf had warned about as far back as 2015 — a period of content overproduction — crested in 2022–2023 and began its descent.

According to Luminate, the number of new U.S. scripted TV titles declined for three consecutive years after 2022, falling roughly 11% in 2025 alone. As overall volume shrank, diversity projects — regarded as commercially riskier — were among the first to be cut. Black stories peaked at 96 titles in 2021, then fell to 95 in 2022, 67 in 2023, and 57 in 2024. The fact that this decline was already visible in 2023–2024, before Trump's return to office, indicates that market forces preceded political ones.

2. Political Headwinds: DEI Rollback Under Trump's Second Term

The second Trump administration moved swiftly after taking office, issuing executive orders that abolished DEI programs across the federal government. Though not a direct mandate for private industry, the policy signal from Washington was immediate. Walmart, Ford, and Harley-Davidson were among the major corporations that began scaling back diversity commitments and dissolving dedicated DEI teams in late 2024. Entertainment companies followed suit.

Disney removed the phrase 'Diversity Initiative' from its 2025 annual report.

Paramount is reported to have significantly downsized its DEI department in 2024. Large asset managers that had led the ESG investment boom began withdrawing support for DEI-related shareholder resolutions, undermining the business case that framed diverse content as a long-term investment value. For studios and platforms, diversity spending has shifted from a strategic imperative to a line item subject to review.

3. Advertising Reshuffled: The Rise of FAST and the 'Brand Safety' Bias

The explosive growth of Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) is shifting the center of gravity in U.S. television toward advertiser-friendly programming. Because FAST channels depend structurally on ad revenue, they are acutely sensitive to content that advertisers might consider brand-unsafe — a designation that has historically fallen on stories foregrounding race, sexual identity, immigration, and disability.

A 2025 report by Luminate and Samba TV estimates that the share of diversity content on ad-supported streaming channels runs 12 to 15 percentage points lower than on subscription VOD (SVOD) services. As overall viewing time continues to migrate to FAST, diverse narratives are being crowded out simultaneously from programming schedules and advertising inventory.

Data Deep Dive: Winners and Losers by Category

► Black Stories: Halved in Four Years — A Sharp Reversal After Black Lives Matter

Black stories peaked at 96 titles in 2021, a direct consequence of the Black Lives Matter movement following George Floyd's death: Netflix, HBO, and Amazon competed to launch Black creator funds and incubation programs. By 2025, that number had fallen to 40 — a 58% drop from the peak. Luminate's analysis found that a significant share of series led by Black creators or casts were cancelled before a second season, or shifted to lower-visibility timeslots on linear channels.

Independent ecosystems anchored by Black-owned producers — Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions, Oprah Winfrey's OWN Network — continue to provide a floor through documentary, non-fiction, and talk formats. But "Black creator-exclusive labels" launched by major studios and streaming platforms have in several cases been consolidated or had their new investment halted, pointing to a structural rather than cyclical retreat.

► Latinx Stories: 19% of the U.S. Population, Zero Titles on Screen

The most dramatic shift is in Latinx stories. The category fell from 14 titles in 2022 to zero in 2025. During the same period, U.S. Census data and research groups estimate that Hispanic and Latinx people account for more than 19% of the total population — and roughly one in four children and teenagers. Despite that, Luminate and UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report tracked the Latinx lead and co-lead TV series share at a consistent 5% before it effectively hit zero in 2025.

UCLA's entertainment research team notes that 'Latinx content has always been a lower priority for investment, and is the first to be sacrificed when budgets are cut.'

The early cancellations of NBC's Superstore and Netflix's Gentefied — both series that centered Latinx communities — stand as emblematic cases. Compounding the problem: as production and distribution shift toward Spanish-language FAST channels like Pluto TV and Tubi, Latinx stories are becoming statistically invisible in the mainstream English-language TV count.

► LGBTQ+ Stories: Characters Are Present, but the Stories Don't Last

LGBTQ+ stories fell from a high of 58 titles in 2021 to 49 in 2022, 37 in 2023, 27 in 2024, and 23 in 2025 — four consecutive years of decline. GLAAD's annual Where We Are on TV report counts 489 regularly appearing LGBTQ+ characters across broadcast, cable, and streaming in the 2024–2025 season — a high absolute number — but estimates that nearly half will not return for the next season. The concentration of LGBTQ+ characters in limited series and single-season projects means that long-form, continuing storytelling is shrinking even as representation counts hold.

In youth and family content specifically, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in several U.S. states has reinforced conservative programming standards. The result is a phenomenon analysts describe as 'quantitative inclusion, qualitative contraction': LGBTQ+ characters are no longer rare, but series that place their lives and communities at the center of the narrative are becoming fewer.

► Women-Centered Stories: The One Category Holding Its Ground

The unexpected countertrend is women-centered stories. By Luminate's measure, series focused on women's experiences and perspectives grew from 32 titles in 2019 to 58 in 2025. Feminist-forward storytelling held relatively stable at around 11 titles. UCLA's 2024 streaming report notes that while the share of series led by women and non-white women creators retreated on some platforms, the budget cuts in this category were proportionally smaller than for male-centered content.

The explanation is straightforward: women account for more than half of streaming subscribers. Netflix, Disney+, and other major platforms treat female-skewing genres — revenge narratives, historical romance, family drama, female friendship stories — as core growth categories. Global hits like The Glory (Netflix Korea) and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story serve as recurring evidence that women-centered and non-white women-centered stories can drive global box office, sustaining the investment rationale.

A caveat: both UCLA and Luminate warn that growth in women-centered stories does not automatically represent progress across other dimensions of diversity — race, sexual orientation, disability. White female characters still dominate the category. If intersectional storytelling — narratives that cross gender with race and sexual minority identity — does not expand, even this category may hit a ceiling.

Kids Content: An Even Steeper Cliff

If the adult content numbers are alarming, the kids content figures are worse. Luminate data shows the share of diverse children's TV series among new U.S. titles fell from a high of 27% in 2023 to 13% in 2025 — cut by more than half in two years. Given that early media exposure is directly linked to identity formation, this decline carries implications well beyond genre statistics: it is a warning signal for the worldview of the next generation.

The 2026 Kidscreen Summit — the leading global conference for children's media — put this gap under the spotlight, featuring independent creators working to fill it. Nigerian-born writer and director Roye Okupe spent nearly a decade self-publishing superhero graphic novels before landing the deal to bring his series Iyanu: Child of Wonder to animation via Cartoon Network and Max. Significantly, the project was financed and produced not by a Hollywood major but by Black-owned independent animation studio Lion Forge Animation — a structural model that points toward where diverse kids content is actually being made.

Okupe is currently developing a feature-length animated film, Malika: Warrior Queen, centered on an African female warrior, as a co-production with partners in the UK, France, and South Africa. His strategy — both in narrative and business terms — is to bypass the Hollywood-centric model and go directly to partners who understand his value.

At the Summit's 'DEI Reckoning: What's Left, What's Next, and Who's Leading the Change?' session, Okupe argued that the current moment of retreat could paradoxically catalyze a new children's content alliance — one in which African, Asian, and European public broadcasters join forces with global OTT platforms to fill the gap Hollywood is leaving.

In short, the kids content picture is one of sharp numerical decline in the U.S. coupled with clear movement toward alternative ecosystems built on independent studios, creator-led IP, and global co-production. Viewed from within U.S. data, it looks like retreat. Viewed globally, it looks like a structural transition in who produces content and who finances it.

The Alternative Ecosystem: YouTube and the Creator Economy Step In

As Hollywood pulls back on diversity, YouTube and the creator economy are partially filling the void.

Paris & Pups — an animated children's series developed by Sadaf Muncy, EVP of Development and Production at HappyNest Entertainment — was conceived and voiced by Paris Hilton, who received an ADHD diagnosis as an adult. The show aims to deliver messages of self-acceptance and positive identity to neurodivergent children. It is co-produced by Hilton's media company 11:11 Media, HappyNest, and 9 Story Media Group, with a strategy of premiering on YouTube first — a deliberate choice to operate outside the traditional broadcast and streaming ecosystem.

Muncy is direct about why: 'On YouTube we can actually talk about the things we need to talk about. We're not restricted by some of the challenges that streamers and networks may be facing.' The platform's algorithm connects niche audiences at global scale, and direct distribution eliminates the gatekeeper layer entirely.

The scale of the YouTube ecosystem is no longer a footnote. As of 2025, the platform has an estimated 2.5 billion monthly active users — the world's second-largest social platform and most-used online video service. Nielsen data shows YouTube has held the top position for streaming watch time on U.S. TV screens for multiple consecutive months, surpassing all SVOD competitors. In combined advertising and subscription revenue, it has outrun Netflix and its peers.

Wall Street research firm MoffettNathanson estimated in 2025 that YouTube has overtaken Disney's media operations to become the world's largest media company, and would be valued at $500 billion to $560 billion if spun out as a standalone entity. The firm pegged YouTube's 2025 revenue at approximately $62 billion, with more than $40 billion from advertising alone — exceeding the combined ad revenue of Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The report labeled YouTube 'the new king of all media' and projected that the creator economy and AI tool proliferation would widen the gap further.

Oxford Economics and industry analysts estimate that the global creator economy — YouTube included — generated between $200 billion and $210 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $800 billion to $900 billion by the early 2030s, with AI-based editing, analytics, and marketing tools improving creator productivity and monetization efficiency by more than 30%.

The limits are real, however. YouTube's algorithm optimizes for views, watch time, and engagement — metrics that can disadvantage minority narratives targeting specific communities in terms of discoverability. Creators without the celebrity infrastructure of a Paris Hilton face genuine barriers to sustainable monetization. That said, the proliferation of YouTube channels addressing ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and neurodiversity — now in the thousands globally — with some evolving into full micro-IP businesses combining online community, educational materials, merchandise, and live events, demonstrates that the creator economy is functioning as a genuine safety net for diverse stories that Hollywood has abandoned.

Industry Implications: Where Does the Next Diversity Wave Come From?

If current trends continue, the fundamental questions of who produces diverse content and through which platforms it reaches audiences are likely to be answered very differently in five years. Three scenarios are drawing the most attention from industry observers.

Scenario 1 — The Expansion of Global Co-Production

Public broadcasters — the UK's Channel 4, Europe's ARTE, Canada's CBC — have maintained policies and commissioning environments favorable to diverse content. These organizations continue to commission long-form projects on refugees, indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ lives, immigrant generations, and disability — subjects that commercial logic tends to deprioritize. They are functioning as a kind of 'public-sector diversity hub' that Hollywood is not.

Multi-party co-production formats involving European and Canadian public broadcasters, South African and Nigerian producers, and Asian studios are already validated as a working niche strategy. The global breakout of Netflix Korea's Squid Game proved that stories produced outside the United States can dominate global mainstream markets. The emerging forecast is that multinational co-productions combining European public broadcasters, global streaming platforms, Korean studios, and African producers could become a standard model for filling the diversity gap Hollywood is leaving.

Scenario 2 — The Mainstreaming of the Creator Economy

The pipeline from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram into legacy media is widening rapidly. Comedians, beauty creators, and queer content producers who built audiences on digital platforms are already crossing over into Netflix, HBO Max, and Hulu originals. The 'Reverse IP Development' model — building a fanbase and narrative universe online first, then expanding into long-form series or feature films — is now recognized as a formal industry strategy. In this model, creators enter as format developers and co-showrunners, not merely as talent, giving them negotiating leverage while platforms acquire diversity IP with reduced upfront risk.

Scenario 3 — The Paradox of the DEI Backlash

Some analysts argue that the backlash against DEI policy may, paradoxically, be energizing the next wave. The #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2015 led directly to the Academy diversifying its membership base. The current contraction could be compressing the energy of a future, stronger countermovement.

At the same time, while the U.S. policy environment has turned conservative, public broadcasters and regulators in other countries are moving in the opposite direction — reinforcing local production quotas and mandatory local content obligations. For global streaming platforms navigating these regulatory pressures, demand for partners capable of producing diverse stories outside the U.S. — in Korea, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — is rising in parallel.

All three scenarios converge on the same conclusion: the next diversity wave is more likely to originate outside Hollywood than inside it — in public broadcasting networks, the creator economy, and multinational co-production.

Conclusion: From Quiet Retreat to Structural Realignment

The Luminate data is unsparing. The near-total disappearance of Latinx and disability stories in 2025, a 58% drop in Black stories from their peak, and an 8-percentage-point decline in overall diversity content share since 2023 signal that Hollywood's 'quiet retreat' has already crossed from cyclical adjustment into structural crisis. Add GLAAD's TV report and UCLA's Hollywood Diversity Report, and the picture is not just one of falling numbers — it is of specific communities losing narrative continuity and being progressively pushed off screen.

But the data also shows where resistance is taking root. Women-centered stories are growing steadily. Independent creators like Roye Okupe and Sadaf Muncy are building African and neurodivergent animation ecosystems from scratch. YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram — alongside the creator economy they power — are providing alternative distribution infrastructure for diverse narratives that traditional Hollywood has stopped supporting. YouTube, which MoffettNathanson has designated 'the world's largest media company,' is the core infrastructure of that alternative ecosystem.

The next diversity wave will most likely not start in Hollywood. It will emerge from African, Korean, Latin American, and Southeast Asian content industries; European and Canadian public broadcasters; YouTube channels; and global co-production networks. The question of who gets to tell stories — and from whose perspective — can no longer be answered by the investment decisions of a few Los Angeles studios.

The Co-Evolution Test: K-Content, Southeast Asia, and FAST — The Next Decade

Viewed from the Korean media and entertainment technology industry, this moment is not just a warning — it is a structural opportunity. The co-evolution model is not about exporting Korean content and collecting royalties; it is about Korea, the United States, and Southeast Asia jointly designing the rules of production, distribution, data, and technology — and growing markets together.

Dr. Samseog Ko, Distinguished Professor at Dongguk University and former commissioner of Korea's Broadcasting and Communications Commission(KCC), frames it precisely: 'K-content can no longer succeed by doing things well in isolation. If Korea, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. do not co-design the rules and share the returns through a co-evolution strategy, we cannot get to the next level.' The center of gravity of Korea's global content strategy needs to shift from unidirectional export to mutual growth.

Three concrete pathways point the way.

First, global Streaming platforms and FAST channels are actively seeking new partners to fill the diversity and local narrative gap left by Hollywood's retreat. Among non-U.S. IP catalogues, K-content — K-dramas, K-variety, K-animation — is the most commercially validated. FAST market analyst Gavin Bridge has consistently argued in his FASTMaster reports that FAST is 'the alternative platform that both viewers and advertisers prefer amid subscription fatigue and economic pressure,' with niche genres and international content emerging as the next growth engine.

K-content is already expanding rapidly across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia through free FAST channels — accessible without a paid streaming subscription. Korean operators including NEW ID and CJ ENM are running K-FAST channels that bundle K-drama, K-pop, kids content, and film into entry-point channels for new audiences. FAST is becoming a low-cost, low-barrier route for K-content to reach U.S. and global viewers alongside subscription OTT — not merely as a supplementary channel but as a primary point of audience acquisition.

Second, Korea has already led in commercializing and piloting next-generation broadcasting technology — ATSC 3.0, datacasting, and IP-based broadcast infrastructure. Sinclair Broadcast Group in the U.S. is the most prominent operator scaling this technology beyond TV channels into data distribution, targeted advertising, and new service platforms. What makes Sinclair strategically important for Korea is that it is a partner capable of co-designing both the platform and the business model — not simply a pipe into which completed content is fed.

If Korean broadcasters and Sinclair jointly design an ATSC 3.0-based channel, data, and advertising model — for example, placing K-content-dedicated FAST channels simultaneously on U.S. terrestrial broadcast, FAST, and datacasting networks, then linking the resulting viewership and advertising data back to Korean and Southeast Asian business operations — the result is a chain connecting Korean production, U.S. next-generation broadcast and data infrastructure, and Southeast Asian and global audiences. That is an entry path to the U.S. market that does not depend on any single streaming platform.

Third, the 'Reverse IP Development' model — in which Korean and Southeast Asian creators who have built audiences on YouTube and TikTok collaborate with broadcasters, cable networks, and studios — creates a new testing ground for formats that pursue both diversity and commercial viability at once.

Building fandoms and narrative universes online first, then expanding into broadcast, streaming, and film, reduces production risk while preserving space for minority, regional, and linguistic diversity.

Ultimately, Hollywood's retreat on diversity is both a warning and a rare opening for Korea. In Professor Ko's words: 'If Korea, Southeast Asia, and U.S. partners do not co-design the playing field together, K-content will find it difficult to hold a leading position in the global media landscape of the next decade.' That means Korea can no longer operate at the level of supplying quality content to Netflix. It must move toward co-designing the rules of the game — the revenue structures, the technology standards, the data frameworks.

How quickly and concretely Korea executes a co-evolution strategy — linking K-content, AI, data, ATSC 3.0, datacasting, global partners like Sinclair, and Southeast Asian production networks into a single integrated ecosystem — will determine the trajectory of the Korean entertainment tech industry for the next decade.

Whether Korea takes the lead in designing that ecosystem, or settles into the role of subcontractor to the next dominant global platform, may be the defining fork in the road of the post-Squid Game era.

DATA NOTE

Key figures in this article are drawn from Luminate Film & TV's analysis of U.S. scripted TV series, 2019–2025, including its 2025 year-end report. Kids content is tracked separately and excluded from the main figures. Diversity share (Figure 2) represents the percentage of all new U.S. TV titles in a given year that fall into one or more of the eight tracked categories; titles qualifying for multiple categories are counted in each. Supplementary data from GLAAD, UCLA's Entertainment & Media Research Institute, Samba TV, MoffettNathanson, and Oxford Economics is drawn from each organization's publicly available reports.

Sources: Luminate Film & TV  |  GLAAD Where We Are on TV Report  |  UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report  |  MoffettNathanson YouTube Analysis  |  2026 Kidscreen Summit Panel Presentations