Diverse Casts on Television Are Still Over the Rainbow

Prime-time television this season continues to be an overwhelmingly white universe, despite commitments by the four major networks to increase minority representation, a new study examining TV diversity has concluded.

“Fall Colors 2000-01,” conducted by the San Francisco-based advocacy group Children Now and being released today, found that little progress has been made by ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox this season, with the number of Latino and other ethnic characters actually decreasing.

More important, the least diverse programming exists in the so-called “family hour” between 8 and 9 p.m. when children are most likely to be watching television. The group specifically looks at children ages 2 to 11. By contrast, most of the series shown during the 10 p.m. hour have multicultural casts.

Also, situation comedy, the most popular genre among young people, is the least diverse of all the genres on prime-time television, the study found. Only 14% of sitcoms have racially mixed casts. Dramas, on the other hand, are three times as likely to have diverse casts.

“The networks are not doing their jobs, and in a lot of ways they’re doing worse than they did last season.” said Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now. “It’s actually quite mystifying, because diversity should be a win-win situation.”

Salisbury added that the lack of diversity in network prime time is a threat to children’s self-images and self-esteem.

“Children are great consumers of storytelling,” she said. “They watch more prime-time television than any other [time of the day]. By recognition, respect and role models, they learn very powerful messages about who’s important and who’s not. They are not getting a sense of inclusion from prime-time television.”

The study also concluded that white characters are more likely than black characters to be shown in professional business occupations, while African Americans are more likely to be depicted in law enforcement-related positions. Of the top five occupations (in terms of frequency) that exist on television, only minorities played domestic workers, homemakers, nurse/physicians’ assistants and unskilled laborers. Almost all of those characters are portrayed by Latinos, the study found.

“Television programming is not accurately depicting the benefits that diversity brings to our culture and society,” said Patti Miller, director of Children Now’s Children in the Media program, whose stated mission is to examine how the media affect children.

“In particular, by both the type and frequency of minority portrayals, prime-time television is unwittingly devaluing the contribution that people of color make to our social, economic and political life,” Miller said.

The findings of the study, which is a follow-up to two Children Now reports released last year examining diversity of television in the 1999-2000 season, closely echoed statements by NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, who expressed concern in January about what he called the lack of progress by ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox to improve cultural diversity. Those networks all signed a multitiered agreement last year with a coalition of minority advocacy groups, headed by Mfume, to increase minority representation in front of and behind the camera.

Mfume has said that in a few months the civil rights organization will consider possible action against the television industry, including a boycott targeting one of the networks.

The Children Now study maintained that the current season has slightly more diversity than last season. In the 1999-2000 season, whites comprised 80% of the characters on prime time. This season, whites made up 75% of all characters. However, just as last year, the diversity decreases when the focus is on central characters of dramas or comedies. Most of the diversity on television is due to the inclusion of non-recurring characters, the study found.

Blacks make up the majority of minority characters in prime time, constituting 17%. Asian Pacific Americans made up 3%, Latinos 2% and Native Americans 0.2%, according to the report. The study noted how programming geared toward children offers significant diversity, with lessons about inclusion, tolerance and cross-cultural learning. Those messages disappear when children watch prime time, Salisbury said.

“Prime television is so behind the curve,” she said. “There is such an aversion to risk in television. With the copycat nature of television, it will take a great success in terms of diverse programming to turn things around.”