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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 11:46 am: | 
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Beyond BET: Cable offering alternatives
By Steve Knopper
Special to the Tribune
January 21 2007
Thirty years ago this week, the eight-day ABC mini-series "Roots" completely reinvented the portrayal of African-Americans on television. It cracked through the color barrier of sitcom stereotypes and opened the door for more elaborate, nuanced programming featuring prominent black actors and writers -- and it set a ratings record for an entertainment show that would stand until the "M*A*S*H" finale in 1983.
Just three years later, the promise of "Roots" began to morph into something completely different. Black Entertainment Television launched in 1980, at first with music videos and old movies, and it grew over the next 27 years into a youth-culture juggernaut every bit as influential as MTV or Comedy Central. BET reaches 80 million North American households, and its founder, Robert Johnson, has become a media magnate, with holdings in magazines, clothing and the Caribbean lottery. Like "Roots," BET was a pioneer.
But BET hardly represents the promise of "Roots" -- interesting, realistic, popular African-American characters fully integrated into the world's television channels.
Younger crowd
The reality of cable television these days is that one channel can't possibly be broad enough to reach every possible audience. So most cable networks have fragmented into "niche" markets. BET's niche is not just African-Americans but 18-to-25-year-old male African-Americans, with programs such as "The Jamie Foxx Show" and "Lil' Kim: Countdown to Lockdown." With the exception of some Sunday gospel programming, the network barely bothers to reach older viewers.
"I would share the bewilderment that it has taken so long to focus more variety for the African-American community," says Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. "The audience is out there. You would think [cable channels] would provide more of a variety of programming. There's a large middle class in America that frankly isn't interested in rap music or even sports."
For decades, BET has held down the sole African-American slot on most cable-television grids in the U.S. Because of a variety of factors -- such as a lack of space on basic-cable rosters over the years -- few in the cable industry have seen the point of expanding beyond BET. (By contrast, there are dozens of channels catering to Hispanics.) And the long-running entertainment network focuses almost exclusively on the 18-to-25-year-old market, leaving older and younger African-Americans with few alternatives. "When you say `kid programming,' there's `That's Raven.' And `That's So Raven,'" jokes Robert Townsend, director of the 1987 movie spoof "Hollywood Shuffle" and the 1995 WB sitcom "The Parent 'Hood." "There's not a lot."
Changing attitudes
Digital cable, which allows more programming, and competition from satellite TV and the Internet, has significantly changed these attitudes. So the Chicago area's Comcast digital lineup includes two relatively new black-oriented networks -- TV One and the Black Family Channel -- both focusing on a wider demographic mix. TV One's aggressive recent ad campaign gets right to the point: "I See Black People."
The BFC has an artistic advantage with veteran filmmaker Townsend, who enjoyed himself so much on a 2004 network talk show that he accepted an invitation to create the programming. (The channel's owners include boxing great Evander Holyfield and ex-Detroit Tigers slugger Cecil Fielder. It was founded in 1999 as MBC Network and switched to the BFC two years ago.) In addition to producing his own shows, including the actors-on-reality-TV "Playhouse 22," Townsend programs the BFC like a traditional network, focusing on kids in the morning, women in the early afternoon and adult comedies and dramas at night.
Townsend, who in the '80s became one of the first African-American directors to send up Hollywood ethnic stereotypes, believes TV is pretty colorful these days. "I look at shows like `Grey's Anatomy' -- that's a really well-balanced, universal show with great characters of all ethnic backgrounds. That reflects the world. And `Lost' -- all kinds of demographics in there," he says. "It's just we need more of those.
`Underserved market'
"The African-American market is really an underserved market. It's like the Emmys [last year]: Other than Andre Brauer [`Homicide'] and Alfre Woodard [`Desperate Housewives'], there wasn't a lot of diversity," Townsend says. "With the Black Family Channel, we're yet another voice -- for people to see new comedians, new actors, new directors. It's not so much about complaining, it's really about doing something."
Have these channels really expanded African-American programming, though? Both channels are stuffed with repeats of old movies and classic sitcoms; so far, the unique show "Playhouse 22" is an anomaly of the Black Family Channel's programming schedule. "Why don't we have something more like `The Wire'? That's a much more interesting benchmark to measure something like "Roots,'" says Herman Gray, a University of California-Santa Cruz sociology professor who wrote the 2004 book "Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness." "That's where the possibility of a different sort of African-American presence on television might matter -- rather than something that simply recycles all that kind of [old] stuff."
TV One, which launched in 2003 with Comcast as a primary investor, lacks the benefit of a big-name director like Townsend on the payroll. So, as Gray suggests, it is especially dependent on "Martin" and "New Jack City" repeats. Its programmers are nonetheless pretty creative -- "Sharp Talk With Al Sharpton" places the gabby reverend in a barbershop, and the upcoming "Black Men Revealed" lures viewers of both genders by asking a panel of men to give away secrets about, well, manhood.
One of TV One's goals, says chief executive officer Johnathan Rodgers, is to "let non-African-Americans see us in a different light.
"I don't think the other networks are insulting to African-Americans -- they just aren't necessarily pro-African-American, or as positive as we are or we would like them to be," he says. "How long can you batter millions of your citizens with just images of us singing and dancing and playing sports when there's just so much about us? We actually cook and design. We have dating shows. If you actually want to see yourself in a non-negative light, that's why we exist."
One of the hardest parts about convincing U.S. cable operators to add TV One was responding to this sentence: "We already have BET."
"It's not offensive to me. They also said, `CNN is the only news channel, Lifetime is the only female channel.' Cable channels are not racist. They treat us all the same," Rodgers says. "But that's always been my point -- there's always been room for more than one. And we deserve more than one."
http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/tv/mmx-0701210055jan21,0,3224436.story?coll=m mx-television_heds |
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