Roles For Minority Actors Have Increased, Yet We're Still MIA
By John Consoli
ALSO READ: "Hollywood's White Summer: Where's the Diversity?"
The broadcast networks have made great strides in recent years by diversifying the faces we see on primetime TV, a momentum that carries into new and returning shows on the 2010-11 schedule.
But it’s a scattershot success. At the moment, the number of scripted, live-action shows on broadcast television with all-black (or predominantly minority, for that matter) casts is exactly zero.
If you take into account reality series, "you might actually be able to make the case that there are more African-Americans on broadcast TV than ever before," longtime media agency research guru Steve Sternberg told TheWrap.
Just not all on the same screen.
"Black people are starved for shows which not only feature lots of black actors but that put black culture front and center in a way they enjoy," veteran TV critic Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, told TheWrap.
The irony is in the past three decades, when a lack of minorities on TV was a measurable problem, programs with an African-American focus were in abundance: “The Jeffersons,” “Sanford & Son,” “Good Times,” “The Cosby Show,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “A Different World,” “Family Matters,” “Martin,” “Living Single,” "The Hughleys," “The Bernie Mac Show,” “Everybody Hates Chris” … the list goes on and on.
Only NBC’s “Cosby” was a true crossover phenomenon – but each had a measure of success to illustrate that black shows have a place on the networks.
And ad-supported cable doesn't fare much better, with TBS – which premiered “Are We There Yet (cast photo below, right)” on Wednesday night – standing head and shoulders above everyone in the genre.To its credit, Fox put on two new shows with all-black casts last year, the only network to do so. "Brothers," a live-action sitcom, failed in the ratings almost out of the gate and was quickly canceled. The animated "The Cleveland Show," which was renewed on Thursday for a third season just as it finished its first run, has been a success in part because it meshed inside Fox's Sunday animation block.
The show has averaged a solid 3.1 18-49 rating and 6.3 million viewers per episode, but was helped by its Seth McFarlane pedigree. And even in that show, some of the main voice actors, including the voice for lead character, are not black.
Fox has been able to cash in on "The Cleveland Show" where it couldn't with "Brothers." in part, because "Cleveland" airs within an animation block and the pieces flow well into and out of each other. “Brothers” did not have as compatible a lead-in or lead-out.
So why not put an all-black sitcom within a white sitcom block?
"They probably don't think a black-cast comedy would fit in with the audience flow of white-cast comedies, but I'd like to see more black-cast comedies," says Sternberg, who spent years doing show research and analyzing the programming landscape for media agency Magna.
Again, not to single out Fox, it did air "The Bernie Mac Show" for several years when many of the other broadcast networks were not airing any shows with primarily black casts.
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