Have you ever wondered how often your favourite comedy panel shows have female guests?
Brave soul (and data scientist) Stuart Lowe has checked nearly 5,000 episodes of UK panel shows to find the male-female host/guest ratio. That’s 4,700 individual TV and radio broadcasts spanning 49 years. And it took around four years to put all this info together.
I wouldn’t have known about this impressive feat, were it not for the Guardian reporting on the results. If you’re reading this, Stuart, nice work and we appreciate the effort. *thumbs up*
Reassuringly, the 1,488 shows featuring only men comprise way less than half the total.
The ratio’s definitely improved since 1967 as well. Especially since the Beeb decreed there must be at least one woman per episode. Can you believe that announcement was only two years ago? Almost a third of appearances are now made by funny women – up from THREE percent in 1989. Ouch.
Insert Name Here, a BBC Radio 2 show hosted by the delightful Sue Perkins, gets top marks for equal representation. That’s nice to see, too.
Oh, but. Guess how many times, out of 4,700, the host and every panellist on a show were female?
Once.
Yep, a January 2012 broadcast of Heresy on Radio 4. So we didn’t even see that all-woman lineup.
There’s one other meticulous complilation we need to give Stuart credit for. His list of funny women in the UK and Ireland. Spot some of our faves on there: Jayde Adams, Samantha Baines, Suzy Bennett, Katherine Ryan, many more…
It’s an amazing start and a great guide. But just 185 women in the whole of the UK doesn’t sound right at all. Not considering we had a record-breaking number of entries for the 2016 Funny Women Awards.
I bet there are more of you who need to be on that list. Seeing as the original Guardian article quoted the list as 168, it’s grown already. If you’re out there, give us a wave. Get your name down.
And even if your favourite comedy show’s lacking ladies lately, here’s something to giggle at. That one all-female show equals the number of times a tub of lard was a guest on Have I Got News For You…
