The Television Ghetto

In June 2001, the Screen Actors Guild released the African American Television Report, a study commissioned by SAG that provided an analysis of both the quantity and quality of African American representation on network television. Conducted over a five-week period in the fall of 1999, the study was authored by Darnell Hunt, a sociology professor and director of the UCLA Center for African American studies.

Hunt concluded that African American characters on television are largely "ghettoized" by three contributing factors: network placement (most African American-centered shows were limited to UPN and WB), time slot (shows featuring all-black casts aired on Monday and Friday nights only), and show type (blacks were more likely than any other racial group to appear in sitcoms).

The study's findings were widely published, and the resulting public criticism prompted the major networks to promise reform. So now, a year later, are those public discussions and corporate adjustments reflected in the networks' fall offerings? Comparing some of the conclusions of the SAG study with the fall lineup, it seems that not much has changed.

African American Television Report: African Americans are over-represented in prime time and are concentrated in sitcoms.

According to the study, while African Americans comprise about 13 percent of the U.S. population, black characters accounted for nearly 16 percent of the characters on network shows during prime time in 1999. This would, at first glance, seem to be a good thing. But in this case, quantity definitely does not equal quality.

"We compared the distribution of characters with the time they had onscreen and we saw these really troubling patterns with how African American characters were being used," Hunt said in an interview with PopPolitics.

"Most African American characters with the highest screen time were the ones who appeared in African American-oriented situation comedies, those same six or seven shows that accounted for almost half of all African American characters on TV, and happened to be on two networks, primarily UPN and WB, and on two nights a week, Monday and Friday. If you get rid of those two nights a week, then you cut away half of the characters and the lion's share of the characters who have meaningful roles. That's what we meant by ghettoization," Hunt said.

Looking at the fall network schedule, few adjustments have been made. African American characters are still highly concentrated in sitcoms, and the shows in which they appear are still limited to certain nights and networks, although the configurations have changed, as we'll see below.

AATR: African Americans are underrepresented on FOX and NBC.

Hunt and his research team noted that "less than 10 percent of characters appearing on FOX and about 11 percent of those on NBC were African American," and most of these characters weren't central to the programs' narratives.

A year later, NBC and FOX are doing slightly better when it comes to giving black characters more substantial roles. NBC's programming is still overwhelmingly white, but at least one of the network's fall sitcoms, Hidden Hills, will feature a black couple in its group of suburban characters. (Only the white couple, however, is pictured on the NBC site.)

FOX has kept the critical and popular favorite The Bernie Mac Show as part of its Wednesday night lineup and will add Cedric the Entertainer Presents..., a comedy variety show starring one of the Original Kings of Comedy, in the half-hour directly following Bernie Mac. It is also slated to introduce Wanda At Large, a midseason comedy about an African American TV morning news show correspondent. 

ABC appears to be in stasis, although My Wife and Kids, starring Damon Wayans, is returning. CBS is introducing Robbery Homicide Division, which includes two African American detectives among its main characters, and the heavily advertised new crime drama Hack, which features an African American detective, Marcellus Washington (Andre Braugher), who helps a white ex-cop, Mike Olshansky (David Morse), with his vigilante crimefighting.