Leading the Way to More Inclusive Storytelling: An Update on Our Progress

Renewing & Expanding Our Commitments

Leading with this research, we aim to build on our legacy of work to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, including the commitments we've made as a company historically-and more recently as part of Content for Change. Anchored in the three pillars of Content for Change-Content, Creative Supply Chain, and Culture, here is a glimpse of what we've been working on and what's on the horizon:

1) In CONTENT, we will continue to evolve and transform the kinds of stories we tell by expanding on our foundation of rigorous research and data-as well as the results of this analysis-over the next 12 months.

Specifically, Paramount will be broadening our infrastructure of data analytics in partnership with our production teams by building a new companywide technology solution to track the demographics of our in-front and behind-the-camera talent and pipeline. This builds on the robust work our UK team have done with Project Diamond, which led to their No Diversity, No Commission pledge, and expanded across our international footprint in 2020. This is necessary to establish a unified, standardized methodology by which production DEI data is reported across the organization.

The first 6 months of data will be captured and analyzed by year's end and serve first as a baseline, and subsequently as a means to help keep us accountable to a set of metrics that demonstrate our progress in this area. This tool will be adopted by and leveraged across the entire studio portfolio and will help us more accurately identify priorities, pinpoint content opportunities, and help shape the direction of our supply chain work going forward. Most importantly, this will lead to informed and data-driven commitments that will help increase representation and more accurate portrayals of BIPOC and underrepresented groups in our content.

Secondly, we are committing to commissioning 8 new insights studies across 2022 and 2023 including a follow up study with Annenberg, and the groundbreaking work with BET and Stanford that will offer an industry view of representation and portrayals in content. These studies will be invaluable tools as we strive to better understand the needs and desires of BIPOC audiences and the way in which we, and the industry create the content they consume.

Together, these commitments signal our ongoing dedication to elevating inclusive stories and strategically embedding this work in our growing streaming platforms, with an eye toward creating meaningful and visible storylines for BIPOC characters now and long into the future.

2) Through our CREATIVE SUPPLY CHAIN, we will continue to transform our content creation process to help ensure equity at each stage-from talent to production to our writers' room. Building on the brands' and studios' longstanding efforts to broaden our creative talent pool with programs such as the ViewFinder Emerging Directors Program, Directing Initiative, Writers Mentoring Program, First Time Directors, and SHOWCASE, Paramount will be expanding our Content for Change Academy.

In partnership with Reel Works, the CFC Academy provides emerging storytellers in underrepresented communities with paid experience in entry-level creative and production roles-without the need for enrollment in traditional four-year colleges or universities. In addition to New York, the program will expand this coming fall to support talent in Los Angeles and the UK.

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