Despite advances, women make up a only fraction of ownership roles in the media business worldwide because roadblocks remain to women owning and scaling up their businesses, according to a panel at the recent Carla 2020 digital conference held by Women in Film & TV International.

The owners of three women-led production companies in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. discussed the uphill battle of owning your content and the never-ending cycle of needing to prove yourself in film and TV during the “Women Who Own It” panel at Carla 2020, held in collaboration with the Banff World Media Festival and BANFF Spark Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media.

The panelists included Maria Armstrong, CEO and executive producer of Toronto’s Big Coat Media; Clelia Mountford, co-founder of U.K. prodco Merman; and Tamra Simmons, CEO and executive producer of Atlanta-based company The Tamra Simmons Brand Agency; and was hosted by BANFF executive director Jenn Kuzmyk.

Armstrong said her company Big Coat Media, which is behind the hit lifestyle franchise Love it or List It, has hit a roadblock in its attempts to diversify from unscripted lifestyle content, part of why it participated in the BANFF Spark accelerator program, launched in 2019 to give women entrepreneurs mentorship and networking opportunities to grow their business.

She noted that while several high-level companies in Canada, such as Blue Ant Media and Boat Rocker Media, have a number of powerful women in decision-making positions, none of them own the companies. It was a point backed up by statistics provided from Kuzmyk at the top of the panel, citing that while women make up 49% of the media and entertainment workforce in the U.S., only 27% are in C-suite positions – a number that dives to 4% for women of colour.

Simmons, who created and executive produced the Emmy-nominated docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, said it was the lack of Black women in decision-making positions that pushed her to continue to work in TV and represent the community. “It needs to be someone who is in that culture who can bring content to a network, because it’s usually white production companies that are talking about Black content and I [think], ‘that’s not really what happened’ or ‘that’s not the history that I know,'” she said.

Mountford and Armstrong discussed how their respective companies are looking to scale up – Mountford’s Merman is behind the BAFTA and Emmy-nominated series Catastrophe, and aims to diversify from scripted comedy to more drama content – but not at the cost of taking on loans or investors and having to answer to a higher-up.

The panel discussed the lack of statistics overall on women-owned enterprises in the media sector, with almost none focused on the Canadian industry. Few surveys, if any, address this metric, but Kuzmyk presented general numbers on all types of women-owned companies in the U.S. Women entrepreneurs are 63% less likely to receive venture capital funding in the U.S., according to a survey by Columbia Business school in 2019, despite their higher returns. Between 2002 and 2014, researchers compared the returns of Fortune 1000 companies led by women CEOs to those of the S&P 500 run mostly by men and found that companies with women at the helm say 226% higher returns.

“I want to control the quality and the content of the shows that I produce,” said Armstrong. “I don’t want to be told [by an owner] that I have to produce a show because if I don’t I’m not going to make my numbers. That means a lot to me because it means a lot to my personal integrity.”

Armstrong brought up the issue that companies with the power to greenlight projects generally don’t offer enough support. “I deal with a lot of women in powerful positions that answer to men and it’s so difficult to get a yes,” she said. “It baffles me, because there are a lot of women in powerful positions that can say yes to women, and somehow that’s not happening.”

“We all can have great success, but I think we need to have more openness to working with other women and other diversities,” said Simmons.

And that includes opening doors for women in the early stages of their careers. “We need to give them opportunities because they’re the future of our industry,” said Armstrong, who noted that 85% of her staff are women. “If we don’t support them, they’re not going to be there.”

Part of that support, according to Mountford, is allowing flexibility for mothers who need to go on family leave or reduced hours to cope with childcare. “You’ve got to be understanding,” said Mountford. “And they will work so much harder for it.”

It’s an industry problem Armstrong is no stranger to, revealing she went back to work three weeks after having twins. “I was so concerned that I would be replaced,” she said. “Then I decided to leave when my kids were six months old and open Big Coat. It was scary, but it was a necessity to take that leap of faith.”

And while Armstrong, Simmons and Mountford all have impressive resumes and awards recognition on the content they produce, there’s still a feeling of needing to measure up to past success. “I feel like I’m in the process of proving myself, even if people on the outside don’t think so,” said Simmons.