NAACP Faults TV On Diversity

The NAACP says television networks have made scant progress in putting minorities in front of and behind cameras, prompting the civil rights group to renew threats of a broadcast boycott.

After looking at the results of agreements negotiated by the NAACP last year to improve diversity at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, the civil rights organization's report released Wednesday found that small gains were made in hiring actors for prime-time series.

But there was little change in minority representation in the executive ranks — those who have the ultimate authority to decide what is produced and aired.

"The snail's pace reaction by some of the networks" 18 months after the agreements were first reached has been discouraging, according to the NAACP report.

"By any reasonable standard, African Americans and all other races of people are underrepresented in almost every aspect of the television and film industry," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume told a news conference Wednesday.

Lack of headway was most evident in news, public affairs and sports departments during the 2000-01 season. In entertainment programming, there remained few writers, producers or casting directors of color.

Corporate boards at the networks' parent companies remained virtually all-white, the report said. NBC and ABC disputed the report's claim that only CBS and Fox had ethnic members on their parent company boards.

At least one minority, Sidney Poitier, is on the board of the Walt Disney Co., parent of ABC, a network spokeswoman said. NBC's parent company, General Electric Co., has an integrated board, an NBC spokeswoman said.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said it hoped its assessment of the coming 2001-02 season "will not force us to visit other options" — including a boycott against a major network and its top advertisers.

"However, if history is any gauge of progress after 52 years of television, it is clear that in all likelihood we will need to do just that," the report said.

It's been two years, though, since the NAACP first threatened such action.

Other possible actions include using federal rules and the courts to mandate opportunities for minorities and asking the government to consider limits on network ownership of programming.

The NAACP's report also found that there is a growing belief among minorities in Hollywood that it's time "to stop begging the barons of the industry for jobs" and develop minority-owned businesses.

In the report, ABC was criticized for what the NAACP called a lack of network commitment to diversity efforts.

Although ABC President Alex Wallau has taken steps toward an improved approach, the NAACP called "untenable" the network's lack of progress since its initial August 1999 talks on the issue.

According to numbers supplied by ABC for the report, 33.6 percent of new hires at the network in the year 2000 were minorities, including a manager of prime-time programs.

Depite NAACP assertions that ABC did not supply specific figures on categories such as minority actors, the network did provide complete data, ABC spokeswoman Zenia Mucha said today.

Those figures showed that minorities have increased to fill a third of the recurring roles on ABC prime-time series, Mucha said. ABC has added such shows as "My Wife and Kids," which stars black actor Damon Wayans, who also writes and produces it, she said.

NBC showed "little to no progress" in hiring of minorities on and off-camera, with an 11 percent drop in the number of black actors in its prime-time series and a 18 percent drop in the number of Asian-American actors as of March 2001, the NAACP said.

The numbers reflected midseason cancellation of shows and losses of ethnic actors and producers, the report said. NBC exceeded its goal of increased use of minority-owned businesses.

Based on numbers supplied by the networks, Fox was found to have boosted the number of minority actors in prime-time series to 41 percent in the 2000-01 season, up from 24 percent in the preceding season.

CBS shows had a substantial increase in black actors compared to the last season (29 percent compared to 17 percent), while there were small gains in the number of Hispanic and Asian-American actors.

Fox and CBS also showed increases in the number of minority writers.

On Monday, the Screen Actors Guild reported that a record number of minority actors found work in film and TV last year as employment for performers overall rose. White actors still dominate the industry, however, playing 76.1 percent of all roles.

Blacks and Hispanics each make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population and Asian-Americans 3.6 percent, according to 2000 census figures.

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