Katherine Ryan is right about women in comedy – I should know

The stand-up and panel show stalwart has criticised the comedy gender divide, writes Vix Leyton. Luckily for female comedians like me, social media has created new ways for us to cultivate new audiences

Katherine Ryan has recently highlighted how there is a distinct lack of female-fronted late-night shows (PA)

Ask any female stand-up, and they’ll have a version of the same story: you do a great set, and someone comes up to you at the end with what they think is a compliment, but which starts with the words: “I don’t normally find female comedians funny.” Your eyes are already rolling, but the twist is that the person giving you the feedback is also a woman.

This is what makes trying to get space on panel and talk shows such an uphill struggle. Katherine Ryan has recently highlighted how there is a distinct lack of female-fronted late-night shows, and discussed with Jessie Ware the flawed perception that women are too soft to transcend daytime. When men get around a table, it’s a panel show; when women do it, it’s Loose Women.

Blame is often laid solely at the door of production companies for failing to feature women, but unfortunately the problem goes deeper than that. Despite some positive steps seemingly trying to balance the books (10/10 for Taskmaster), wholesale change is unlikely to start there – it needs to come from a more grassroots place.

It’s easy to brand TV production companies sexist, and there is definitely truth to the notion it is very hard to be what you can’t see. Some outlets buck the trend – the BBC in particular has an ethos to inform audiences as well as entertain, so typically tries harder when it comes to issues of representation.

But rather than simply being sexist, what production companies really are is commercial. Their job is to supply a demand, and at the end of the day, if there was demand for female-fronted shows, such shows would already exist. Realistically, the money people have run the numbers, they have done the polling, they have seen the stats on experimental efforts, and viewers just aren’t passionate enough about getting more women in these roles for them to bother.

Research I worked on with Censuswide back in 2020 showed that while half of people didn’t think gender had a bearing on how funny people are, of the people who did take a view on the battle of the sexes, 49 per cent of men found men funnier, alongside 26 per cent of women. So, half of people don’t care, and of the people that do, they prefer men.

When you look at data like that, you can see how it would be hard for a TV exec wanting change to make a case that having more women on comedy shows makes good business sense.

Women in comedy have a PR problem, and it goes beyond lack of TV visibility. Fortunately, there is evidence that the revolution has started. We are finding new ways to unlock new audiences that are turned off by the male-focused stuff and want more of what women have to offer.

Podcasting and social media in particular offer women the opportunity to seize control of their own comedy destinies. Serena Terry, the woman behind the multimillion-follower juggernaut Mammy Banter, is the first female comic ever to sell out the Belfast SSE arena, despite not getting her start on telly. Her TikTok and Instagram content was all it took to compel people to part with their cash for an hour in her company.

Whilst the range of options can seem overwhelming, there are plenty of options that give women the space to create their own content, and the barrier to entry is so much lower than it can be to get a TV show commissioned. I started a panel show podcast at my kitchen table in lockdown that became a sellout Edinburgh Fringe live show, and which I am taking back for a fourth year in August. I have total editorial control. I choose the guests, and I choose the host (which is why it’s me).

Jess Fostekew’s Hoovering, All Killa No Filla with Kiri Pritchard-Mclean, and Rachel Fairburn, Drunk Women Solving Crime – all have found their niche and audience, and have leveraged them into venue-filling ticket sales.

Women have been locked out of the boys’ club of late-night comedy TV for as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s time we tried other doors, and found ways to cultivate audiences via a different route.