TV networks make unequal progress toward on-screen diversity
Kenya Barris, creator of ABC’s “black-ish,” was motivated to write the comedy about an African-American family’s efforts to honor its heritage in part by the unreality of what he grew up watching on television.
“I saw ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ and thought, ‘What part of New York is this?”’ recalled Barris, who is black. “It’s not about being diverse. It’s about being true to the world.”
His show comes 15 years after civil rights groups, galvanized by a lineup of new network series almost entirely devoid of minority characters, sought and ultimately won agreements from major broadcasters to put programs on the air that better reflect the nation’s population.
An AP analysis of regular cast members of prime-time comedies and dramas on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox found progress since then in hiring black actors, but slighted other minorities. Casts at three of the four networks are still whiter than the nation as a whole.
That’s in contrast to a fall season that seemed to signal broad change. Besides “black-ish” and a trio of shows from black megaproducer Shonda Rhimes, it offered Asian-American crime fighters and Latino families. Among the key findings of the AP analysis: ABC, NBC and Fox now have a higher percentage of blacks in prime time than there is in the general population — a significant change over 1999. The difference is most dramatic at Fox: 6.5 percent of characters in lead or supporting roles were black in 1999 to 21 percent black this past fall, a number that notched up again with January’s premiere of the black drama “Empire.”
Other ethnic groups don’t do nearly as well. While Latinos are the nation’s largest minority group at more than 17 percent of the population, only Fox and ABC have Latino representation of as much as 10 percent.
CBS, the nation’s most popular network, had the most diversity 15 years ago and now has the least. CBS programs are whiter now than they were then.
Time has not made broadcast’s role moot. Network fare remains dominant for most consumers despite the broad array of alter- natives. What Americans see — or fail to see — has a powerful impact on how individuals regard themselves as part of the nation’s mosaic.