Women in Film and TV “Galvanized” by Comments Like Gregg Wallace’s, Says WFTV CEO

Women in entertainment are galvanized heading into 2025, the CEO of Women in Film and TV (WFTV) has said.

Ahead of the organization’s biggest night of the year on Friday at the WFTV Awards, Katie Bailiff sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about what’s being celebrated — and what’s still to be done — as they get ready to mark another year of supporting women in U.K. media.

“I think we’ve come a really long way,” Bailiff said, referencing the comments of U.K. MasterChef co-host Gregg Wallace, who attributed his on-set misconduct allegations to comments from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age” (Wallace later apologized after sparking fury, but has denied the claims made against him).

“All you have to do is look at this past week, the phrase that’s become quite iconic already: ‘middle-class women of a certain age,’” Bailiff said. “I think that there are lots of people that have come forward and said: ‘I am one of those people. I’m really proud, and actually, I’m totally prepared to stand up for younger women coming into the industry, because we’ve been there, we’ve seen it, we’ve done it, and we want to make it better.’ It’s galvanizing quite a lot of women, every time this happens.”

Can Bailiff highlight some of the greatest 2024 examples of women’s work? “Sharon Horgan’s Bad Sisters, Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson in Scoop, Disclaimer with Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet producing and starring in Lee, Andrea Arnold’s Bird, Jessica Gunning in Baby Reindeer and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked.” She adds: “Female-led indies  who we champion — Hidden Light, Merman, Quay Street, Sister, Candour Productions — consistently excellent work with a  focus on female-led stories.”

The awards on Friday will celebrate the best of WFTV; women who set the example for the wealth of industry talent, Bailiff continues, across 14 categories. “Writer, producer, director, contribution to the medium, lifetime achievement,” she begins. “All women are absolute game-changers in their various roles across the industries, that’s on-camera and off-camera. We don’t divide it into craft, like some awards do — that’s really important.”

An addition this year is the dedicated production management award. “Production managements are largely women,” Bailiff says. “And I think they’re often the unsung heroes of production. So we’ve got our dedicated production management award this year…. That is recognizing somebody that never, ever gets to be on the stage.”

The event will host nearly 1,000 people and normally sells out in two to three minutes. “It’s a real treat of a day, people love it and we love putting it on.” Previous winners include writer and producer Nicôle Lecky, actor-writer Michaela Coel, journalist Emily Maitlis, producer Sam McAllister and founder of Sister Pictures Jane Featherstone.

WFTV has doubled its membership over the last three years, coming up to nearly 4,000 ahead of 2025. They run a senior leadership course, as well as offer help to those in mid-level roles. They provide workshops and mentor schemes for younger creatives and this year alone have put on 200 events to screen or celebrate the work of women in the U.K.

“The crisis around freelancers is very real,” Bailiff adds. “Lots of our members are not working, and we’ve tried to really support them this year. So we’ve been doing Freelancer Hubs: a whole day where we invite freelancers in, doing headshots. We’ve been doing CV workshops for freelancers. We’ve been doing confidence building and networking events and really skilling up people while they’ve had the time.”

Of course, there is always work to be done: “Sixteen percent of the top 250 Hollywood films were directed by women,” the WFTV boss says. “Female writers are at 36 percent and its directors at 29 percent, so it is increasing year-on-year.” Though it’s not the equality WFTV wants to see, Friday’s ceremony will celebrate this week the change they have been a part of.