Dawn Holliday-Mack
Holliday-Mack provides critical intel and insight on the demographic and psychographic composition habits and interests of current and targeted El Rey viewers. She uses this data to develop core strategies to help boost awareness, ratings and engagement. Holliday-Mack credits her own network’s series “From Dusk Till Dawn and “Lucha Underground” as examples of programming that best represents diversity. “I love shows with diverse casts and relatable narratives that are accessible to all demographics,” she says.
What grade do you give the cable industry on diversity and why?
Overall, our industry has made significant strides in the past year to develop more inclusive programming; however, there is still lots of room for improvement, especially in boosting diversity among the executive ranks and ensuring balanced on-screen portrayals of all underrepresented groups. I’m an optimist and an overachiever so I want our industry to earn and keep an A grade.
The technology that will most benefit cable over the next year is…
Adoption of Big Data. As more of our audience becomes fragmented and accurate measurement of total eyeballs more elusive, it is increasingly important to increase the value of each tracked eyeball – by understanding the audience at a deeper level, their tastes, behaviors, passions and loyalties. Cable TV Networks can get thousands of data points each day from social media, digital and mobile, and coupled with their advertising and distribution partners can create more engaging and relevant content for diverse audiences.
What television show/s – cable or broadcast – best embrace diversity?
I’ll start with our El Rey Network original series “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “Lucha Underground.” Some of my other favorites are “Grey’s Anatomy,” “How to Get Away With Murder,” “East Los High,” “The Fosters,” “Empire,” “Power,” and “Jane the Virgin.” I love shows with diverse cast and relatable narratives that are accessible to all demographics.
My personal election campaign slogan would be…
Brighter Days Ahead
Favorite charity organization you work with?
National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). In the past few years under the leadership of Axel Caballero, they have really blossomed into a phenomenal advocacy organization making great strides to train, support and promote Latino creators in the industry. I collaborated with them last year on launching the Latino Lens Filmmaker Showcase and look forward to working on more projects in the future. They were recently selected as the recipient of the 2016 Diversity Advocate Award by the Walter Kaitz Foundation.
