TV’s Color and Gender Lines, Examined Anew

A new study by the San Francisco advocacy group Children Now, analyzing the diversity of casts on network drama and comedy series, found that while most prime-time shows include some multicultural characters, men are twice as visible as women; Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans or characters with disabilities barely exist; and any racial component largely disappears in the opening credits. When the focus is narrowed to younger characters, diversity drops even further; 54% are male and 86% are white.

Titled “Fall Colors: How Diverse Is the 1999-2000 TV Season’s Prime Time Line-Up?,” the study will be released today and was conducted by the nonprofit social policy organization as part of its Children & the Media program, whose stated mission is to examine how the media affects children. It looked at all primary, recurring and nonrecurring characters on 274 episodes of 92 prime-time shows on the six major broadcast networks. Sports, newsmagazines, game shows and movies were not included in the study.

Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now, said they began examining the issue because of recent controversy over prime-time’s limited number of minority characters and the way children react to images on television: “Children in America tell us that being included in TV is a major signal of acceptance, respect and recognition. The absence of cultural images and characters that reflect them, conversely, is disturbing to kids. It affects their aspirations. There is a fundamental inclusivity that kids expect.”

In broad strokes, the study found that UPN, which has several shows geared to urban audiences, featured the largest representation of minority characters--35%--while ABC had the smallest representation with 13% of all characters, followed by NBC with 16%, Fox with 19%, CBS with 20% and the WB with 23%.

When tallying young characters, the study found roughly 12% of prime-time casts are made up of characters who were younger than 18, or still in high school. Of that group, African American youths constituted 7.9%, Latinos represented 3.7%, Asian Pacific Americans 1.2% and Native Americans 0.6%.

The report is being unveiled as the television industry continues to grapple with the hot-button issue of multiculturalism in television. Salisbury said that “while the industry to one degree or another has responded to the criticisms about the lack of diversity, there clearly is still a problem. Any way you carve it, the more central a character is to a program, the more likely he or she is white.”

The study concluded: “The world of prime-time television does not reflect the diversity that is apparent in the world outside the screen, particularly the world of children. Prime time has a little room for white characters with disabilities and white men who are gay. And when programming does include people of color, it frequently does so in an exclusionary manner.”

The report was commissioned in part to provide networks with information regarding a quantification of their usage of minorities in prime-time casts. A second part of the study will be released in the summer that will be a qualitative examination of diversity in content, character development and story lines of selected casts.

Among the study’s other findings: Only 17% of the shows examined have a cast of diverse characters in the opening credits. The credits were deemed a critical component to look at, since the device is used to frame and remind viewers about the show, its characters and its premise. Almost half of the shows on prime time have all-white casts in the opening credits, according to the study. And less than one-fourth of series on all the networks feature diversity in the opening credits.

Looking at shows from opening credits through end titles, the study found the total prime-time population is mostly white, there is a visible African American presence, and, when compared to the population at large, there is a disproportionately low number of all other racial and ethnic minorities. According to the study, 80% of all prime-time characters are white, 13% are black, and all other minority groups account for 3% or less.

Actors of color appearing in guest or recurring roles on network series account for much of television’s current diversity, said the report, which is described by Children Now executives as the most comprehensive look at diversity on the prime-time lineup to date.

When looking at all the characters on series, including all primary, secondary, recurring and nonrecurring roles, 61% of the programs currently on television have diverse, integrated casts, the study said. But only 40% of the shows have the same cultural diversity among its recurring characters.

The lack of minorities is even more striking when looking at shows that feature young casts such as “Dawson’s Creek” and “Freaks and Geeks.” While the country’s youth demographic is increasingly diverse, the characters on those shows are more likely to be white, it found.

In nonrace-based findings, “Fall Colors” concluded that 25% of female characters hold down professional jobs, while there were high numbers for occupations such as nursing, clerical work and homemaking. Also, most openly gay characters are male.

Founded in 1988, Children Now last year examined media portrayal of boys with a study titled “Boys to Men: Messages About Masculinity,” and in 1998 it conducted a study looking at minority images called “A Different World: Media Images of Race and Class.”