The decline in US scripted commissioning following the end of Peak TV has also affected the number of new series featuring women in leading roles. However, 3Vision Show Tracker data reveals that these series are beginning to recover their share of commissions, even as the wider market remains significantly below its 2022 peak.
Between 2019 and 2022, women featured in leading roles in at least half of all new US scripted series, reaching a high of 54% in 2022. This coincided with the height of the streaming commissioning boom, when major studios were investing heavily in original programming for their newly launched SVOD services.
The subsequent contraction had a particularly pronounced impact on series with women leads. Their share fell to 47% in 2023 and continued declining to just 41% in 2025, the lowest level since 2018. This suggests that the impact of reduced commissioning budgets was not evenly distributed across scripted programming, with series featuring women in lead roles losing ground relative to the wider market.
However, the 2026 pipeline points towards a reversal of this trend, with women once again featuring in leading roles in 49% of new scripted series. While this remains below the heights of Peak TV, it represents a significant improvement on 2025.
As explored in previous commissioning analysis, the wider commissioning market has also shown signs of recovery, although activity remains well below the 2022 peak.
Streaming services remain central to the commissioning of scripted series featuring women in leading roles. Studio-owned SVOD platforms were particularly important during the Peak TV years, commissioning 26 such series in both 2021 and 2022, more than any other individual category of commissioner.
These platforms also saw some of the largest reductions following the peak, with their output falling to 17 titles in 2024 and 13 in both 2025 and 2026. However, their relative commitment to commissioning series with women leads has remained stronger than that of many traditional broadcasters.
In 2026, approximately 54% of studio SVOD commissions feature women in leading roles, compared with just 23% of Free TV commissions. Netflix and Amazon Prime also exceed the overall market average, with women featuring in leading roles in approximately 56% and 60% of their respective new series.
Free TV has shown a different pattern. Although traditional broadcasters have contributed to the wider recovery in US scripted commissioning, this has not necessarily translated into more series featuring women in leading roles. Free TV commissions in this category fell from six in 2025 to just three in the 2026 data, despite the overall number of Free TV commissions remaining broadly unchanged.
This highlights the distinction between a recovery in the volume of scripted programming and a recovery in the representation of women among its leading characters.
With the wider US scripted market still adjusting to the end of Peak TV, the 2026 data provides some encouraging signs that women are recovering their share of lead roles. However, the recovery remains uneven, with streaming services continuing to play a particularly important role in commissioning these series.
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