Lifetime has unveiled a new initiative, dubbed "Broad Focus," designed to give women more opportunities to develop, produce, write and direct content for the female-focused network.
The initiative will especially focus on finding and growing up-and-coming talent in the creative field. Broad Focus also aims to raise awareness on the need for more women creating meaningful content in the media.
During 2014, 40% of Lifetime’s movie writers and 20% of the directors were women. Only 7% of Hollywood’s feature films were helmed by women during the same time period.
The network is currently shopping the initiative to advertisers for its upfront sales with two planned programs slated for later in 2015. One will be sponsored short-form content about women filmmakers. The other will partner directors with marketers for short films.
“There is a large, untapped well of female talent out there, and we want to remain first in line to that source of creativity,” said Nancy Dubuc, president and CEO of Lifetime’s parent A+E Networks. “Our company invests heavily in finding fresh, unique voices, and Broad Focus will inspire us to look deeper and in non-traditional places to discover women among those storytellers.”
Broad Focus has also partnered with the Bentonville Film Festival, which has similar goals for media. Lifetime is already the Bentonville, Ark. fest’s cable TV partner.
