Every scored title in the WhatSphere catalog carries four relative appeal indices, one each for Young Men, Young Women, Older Men and Older Women, normalized so the four sum to roughly 200. Adding the two male spheres gives a male share and the two female spheres a female share; an evenly split title reads about 100 and 100. The young and older shares are built the same way. Every earlier study here read feature films only; this one asks whether the medium itself changes who a title is built for.
The figures cover 4,542 scored titles in the eight media with at least thirty scored titles each, released between 1895 and 2026. The short answer: television reads measurably closer to gender-even than film, and most of that gap survives holding genre constant. Games read as the most male-skewed medium in the catalog, but most of their lead comes from the genres games are made in, and their figures rest on much thinner data.
The raw picture
Films, the largest sample at 2,818 titles, read 123.2 male against 76.9 female. Television series, at 1,142, read 110.8 against 89.3, closer to even and younger, at a 108.8 young share against 98.5 for film. Video games, at 178 titles, read 151.4 male against 48.6 female, further from even than any other medium. Documentary films and docuseries read the oldest, near a 124 older share, and YouTube channels the youngest, at a 122.2 young share.
Audience skew by medium
| Medium | Titles | Male share | Female share | Young share | Older share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Film | 2818 | 123.2 | 76.9 | 98.5 | 101.7 |
| TV series | 1142 | 110.8 | 89.3 | 108.8 | 91.4 |
| YouTube channel | 218 | 113.2 | 87.0 | 122.2 | 77.9 |
| Video game | 178 | 151.4 | 48.6 | 111.9 | 88.1 |
| Documentary film | 55 | 108.1 | 92.0 | 75.2 | 124.9 |
| Docuseries | 50 | 110.9 | 89.2 | 76.5 | 123.7 |
| Anime series | 43 | 123.5 | 76.6 | 121.8 | 78.3 |
| Anime film | 38 | 111.7 | 88.3 | 112.8 | 87.3 |
Is it just genre?
An earlier study found that national differences in film skew were mostly genre. Media differ in genre mix too: romance supplies 83 scored films and no scored series under a primary romance label, while reality supplies 87 series at a 95.1 male share and no scored films.
Eight genres have at least ten scored films and ten scored series each, covering 2,030 films and 940 series. Within them, series read less male than films in six genres and more male in two, animation and documentary. The largest within-genre gaps are in mystery, 109.4 against 128.1, and crime, 130.8 against 148.7.
Film vs TV series, genre by genre
| Genre | Films | Film male | Series | Series male | Film young | Series young |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | 333 | 164.2 | 68 | 152.2 | 122.0 | 120.3 |
| Animation | 94 | 112.9 | 102 | 121.9 | 152.3 | 147.4 |
| Comedy | 484 | 110.7 | 240 | 102.6 | 118.6 | 130.9 |
| Crime | 134 | 148.7 | 61 | 130.8 | 62.9 | 66.8 |
| Documentary | 171 | 126.8 | 82 | 130.4 | 86.2 | 89.9 |
| Drama | 717 | 108.9 | 322 | 100.6 | 68.6 | 81.7 |
| Family | 57 | 108.5 | 46 | 98.0 | 163.6 | 156.8 |
| Mystery | 40 | 128.1 | 19 | 109.4 | 63.2 | 77.8 |
Direct standardization puts a number on it: across those eight genres, films read 123.1 male and series 111.7, an 11.4-point gap. Reweighting the series to the film genre mix moves them to 115.1, leaving 8.0 points; reweighting films to the series mix leaves 6.6. Either way, roughly three fifths to seven tenths of the gap is not genre. The age gap behaves the same way: 10.7 points raw, 7.8 or 7.5 after standardization.
Games: mostly genre, with a smaller gap left over
For games the picture runs the other way. Only action and adventure have at least ten scored games and ten scored films, and together they hold 148 of the 178 games. Adventure alone holds 134, because the catalog files most game genres under it: 47 of those are role-playing games and 40 are shooters, while only 6 carry adventure as their own label. Within the two genres, games read 153.7 male against 145.9 for films weighted to the same mix, a gap of 7.8 points, against a raw catalog-wide gap of 28.2. Most of the lead is genre mix. On age, same-genre games read a 111.1 young share against 130.5 for films, skewing older-male rather than younger.
The same story, told twice
Properties that crossed media show the pattern and its exceptions. The Witcher series reads 100 male, while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt reads 168. Fallout on television reads 164, against 193 for Fallout 4 and 171 for Fallout: New Vegas. Arcane reads 98 against 127 for League of Legends, and the 2006 Silent Hill film 104 against 147 for the 2024 Silent Hill 2. Star Trek: The Next Generation reads 115 against 178 for The Wrath of Khan. Elsewhere the gap is narrow: Mortal Kombat (2021) reads 175 against 182 for Mortal Kombat 1, and The Last of Us Part II at 116 sits just below the series at 119. Television is not always the more even side: the Fargo series reads 154 against 120 for the 1996 film.
Reading this responsibly
Four caveats. First, and most important for games, their scores rest on far thinner cast data. Scored games average 3.0 cast rows, against 25.7 for films and 13.7 for series; 88.8 percent of games have four or fewer, against 8.2 percent of films; and 46.6 percent of games have at least one sphere pinned at 0 or 100, against 24.0 percent of films. Treat the game figures as directional. Second, the genre labels were built for film, so a game's genre is a coarse fit. Third, a series is read here as a whole, across seasons that may differ from one another. Fourth, these are relative indices describing the shape of appeal, not audience headcounts.
The summary is narrow. A drama or crime series reads closer to even than a film in the same genre, and that difference is not an artifact of genre mix. For games the raw lead is large, but most of it is genre, and the rest rests on data thin enough to hold loosely.
