Gender-balanced hiring on television’s most popular series dipped during the 2025-2026 season, ReFrame found in its latest annual report in collaboration with WIF. Forty-two of the season’s top 100 series were awarded the organization’s designation for gender-balanced productions, down three percent from the year prior, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. “It confirms what I think a lot of people are witnessing, experiencing, which is that we are backsliding on gender balance,” said WIF CEO Kirsten Schaffer in an interview. The organization, which was founded by the Sundance Institute and WIF in 2017, awards its “ReFrame Stamp” to TV productions that hire sufficient numbers of women or nonbinary or trans people in significant roles such as showrunner, lead actor, co-lead actor, director and various heads of department. The organization uses a point system to determine eligibility. Added Schaffer of ReFrame’s system, “We think we’ve made it relatively easy to get and so the fact that the numbers are moving backward rather than forwards is really an issue. We’re looking for forward progress.” She added, “Even though …