The call for more diversity in Hollywood has been a rallying cry as of late, but women and minorities are still overlooked for first-time directing jobs, an annual study from The Directors Guild of America (DGA) reveals.

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The survey for the 2015-16 season shows out of 153 directors who received their first assignments in episodic TV, 15 percent were ethnic minorities and 23 percent were women.

For minorities, this is nothing new.

“Hiring of minority first-time TV directors has remained flat over the past seven seasons,” the reports reads.

Women saw “a slight upward trend.”

“In the last three years alone, hiring of women first-time TV directors fell from 23 percent to 16 percent, then rose back up to 23 percent,” according to the report.

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The DGA data acknowledges that the group being measured season to season is more sensitive to fluctuation because of its small size, but overall it indicates that in the last seven years, 81 percent of first-time episodic directors were male,19 percent were female, 86 percent were Caucasian and 14 percent were minorities.

Bethany Rooney, co-chair of the DGA Diversity Task Force, called for change from within.

“To change the hiring pool, you have to change the pipeline. Year after year when we put out our TV director diversity report, the media and public are stunned that the numbers remain virtually the same,” she said.

“But how can it change when employers hand out so many first-time director assignments as perks? If they were serious about inclusion, they would commit to do two simple things.

“First, look around and see that there’s already a sizable group of experienced women and minority directors ready to work and poised for success — and they would hire them. And second, they would more carefully consider these first-time directing jobs, and develop merit-based criteria for them — with an eye toward director career development.

“In the end, it’s all about who is a good director.”

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