Study No Surprise to Latinos : Television: Actors and activists also point out that invisibility goes well beyond prime time to daytime coverage.

The networks didn’t want to talk about it Wednesday, but Latino actors and activists and even some television producers did, expressing dismay but not surprise over a new study showing that Latinos accounted for only 1% of all characters in prime-time entertainment programs during the 1992-93 season.

“This report just validates all the things we’ve been saying for years,” said Esther Renteria, director of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “However, this report doesn’t give you the true scope of the problem because it only deals with prime time. We are not on the soaps, we are not hosting talk shows. We are not visible any time of the day. It’s even worse than this report tells you. . . . Television does not look like America looks.”

“It is exasperating that it is taking so long for Latinos to be recognized,” said Ricardo Montalban, who formerly starred in “Fantasy Island” and recently returned to prime time in a syndicated series, “Heaven Help Us.” “Hollywood is lacking in representing us truthfully and as we deserve. Latinos are truly invisible in Hollywood.”

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The report by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs said that the number of Latinos in prime-time television shows has dropped from 3% in 1955 to 1% in 1992, despite the fact that Latinos make up 10% of the U.S. population.

Representatives for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox said they could not comment on the study because they had not yet seen it. But speaking to the topic in general, Sherrie Rollins, a senior vice president at ABC, said:

“We would certainly agree that Hispanics are underrepresented in television; I think that’s very obvious. And I can tell you we have had active discussions internally at ABC discussing the role of Hispanics on television and believe that progress is required. We’re very excited that Jimmy Smits will be joining ‘NYPD Blue’ in a very prominent role, but we certainly hope to have more.”

Bernard Lechowick, one of the creators and executive producers of “Hotel Malibu,” a CBS summer series that features two prominent Latino characters, said, “I don’t think there’s been malice on the part of the networks. There has simply been a lack of consciousness.”

But activists didn’t let the networks off so easily, dismissing the idea that the situation has arisen from benign neglect.

“The entertainment community is a very small, tightly closed community and it’s culturally jaded,” said Eddie Wong, director of the Rainbow Coalition’s Commission on Fairness in the Media. “I don’t know if they’re that familiar with L.A. outside of the Westside. . . . They need to understand that diversity is good for business, to overcome their fears.”

Wong said that the Rainbow Coalition wants to meet with network executives and discuss some solutions to the problem. He and other activists believe that more than just consciousness-raising is needed.

“You have to make a commitment to having diversity, just like in any other business,” Wong said. “And once you’ve made that commitment you have to find ways to nurture it: Develop programs and find writers and place the programs on the air and promote them. One of the issues that’s underlying this is whether ethnic programs will sell: Will they only appeal to minority audiences or will they have a broad-based appeal? And, in a lot of ways, ‘The Cosby Show’ answered that question.”

The study, commissioned by the Latino advocacy group National Council of La Raza, also called into question the few Latino roles that have existed. It charged that portrayals “have not improved markedly since the days of Jose Jimenez and Frito Bandito.”

Pepe Serna said that after 25 years of playing more than his share of criminals, his role as a Mexican American parole officer in “Hotel Malibu” is the most positive one he has had. “I always thought by doing good work you would be able to do better things, but it hasn’t been the case,” he said. “The better roles haven’t been out there.”

Cheech Marin, who has been involved in many television ventures, complained that once an ethnic-related show does make it to television, programmers “run you through a deflavorizing machine so you’re like from nowhere.”

“The networks have one rule: Try to force it to the middle. That’s the current you’re always fighting in network TV,” Marin said.

Renteria echoed similar sentiments, citing the networks’ belief that ethnically flavored shows won’t fly in Middle America.

“We’ve gone and met with the presidents of networks and entertainment divisions, and Latinos are not one of their priorities,” Renteria said. “Their research departments tell them Latinos and Asians are ‘foreigners,’ and therefore any shows about them won’t play in the midsection of this country.”

Marin suggested that Latino entertainers join with politicians to lobby the network powers.

“I think it’s totally incumbent upon the Latino political and entertainment forces to band together and force the networks to do something about it,” he said. “They’re not going to move any other way. That’s the only thing they respond to. They respond to a combination of sponsor pressure and political pressure.”

“We need to develop our own producers, writers and directors--similar to what the African American population has done,” Montalban said.

Many of those contacted pointed out that blacks have been far more vocal about having their numbers represented on prime-time television and have therefore had more success. According to this week’s study, the number of African Americans in prime-time shows rose from 0.5% in 1955 to 17% in 1992, while blacks currently account for 12% of the U.S population.

“A few years ago I presented an award at the NAACP awards show, and I watched 19 black filmmakers get up on stage and receive awards,” Marin said. “And at that time there wasn’t one Latino character in a continuing role on TV. . . . We (Latinos) absolutely have to take a page out of their tactic book because they have been successful and we have not. They have become successful by being loud and in your face.”