Published: 17 January 2014
Country: UK
The majority of media companies in the UK are in hands of men. This is the main conclusion of a report that analysed 31 companies, showing that of the 216 directors across the media groups studied, only 33 (14.9%) are women.
TheMediaBriefing, author of the study, denounced that these figures expose that “the upper echelons of the UK’s media remain largely unrepresentative of their audiences and the wider population”.
Some of the worst cases are found in the Guardian Media Group, Haymarket Media Group, Archant, and The National Magazine Company (with female titles such as Cosmopolitan and Elle) as all have just one woman in their boards.
On the other side, there are some UK media businesses that have a more balance of gender representation such as At Condé Nast (with publications such as VOGUE, The New Yorker or Vanity Fair) and IPC Media which almost half of its directors are women.
“Our analysis shows that when it comes to the positions of ultimate responsibility – the places where the buck stops – more often than not you will find a man in his later years,” affirms TheMediaBriefing.
This is one more report that states the gender disparity that exists across UK Media where top media roles are a glass ceiling for women journalists. For example, The Daily Star is the only national newspaper in the UK edited by a woman, Dawn Nessom.
One of the main negative consequences for the media is the lack of a diverse representation of the society or what is the same, of their audience, in their companies.