A black and white world

Despite the continuing increase of cultural diversity in American society, prime-time television continues to depict a largely black and white world, according to a new UCLA study released Tuesday.

The report, titled “Prime Time in Black and White,” concluded that both white and black Americans are overrepresented on prime time, albeit slightly, with whites accounting for about 74% of all characters, even though they constitute 69% of the nation’s population. African Americans account for about 16% of all characters, while they make up 12% of the nation’s population.

Latinos, who, at 13%, constitute the largest minority of the nation’s population, account for only 3% of the characters in prime time.

The report, by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, is the second phase of a five-year study monitoring the presence of blacks and other minorities. The report examined 234 episodes of 85 comedies and dramas airing on the four major networks, UPN and the WB during October and November of last year.

The resulting sample consisted of just over 189 hours of television and included the examination for more than 3,950 characters.

The study also revealed that white Americans are most overrepresented on the WB and NBC, where they account for 83% and 81% of characters, respectively. Blacks, on the other hand, continue to be most overrepresented on UPN, where they account for 31% of all characters. Other minority characters appear so infrequently in prime time that patterns were difficult to establish, the study said.

“The television industry continues to be driven by business logic that divides the nation into market segments based on race, where the large but declining white segment reigns supreme,” the report concluded.