Road to the Multicultural Majority - Simon Applebaum

We have a wide swath of fall primetime announcements coming from major broadcast and cable networks this week. As you chew them over, watch closely how much more diversity, both on and off-camera, gets produced.

In case you haven't heard, diversity in television is as much a front-burner matter to handle as any other. Especially when the recent 2010 United States Census Bureau results, no matter what issues some people have over them, clearly make two points. With 38 percent of this nation's 309 million residents, residents of color, we're farther down the road to a U.S. with more than half of its citizens multicultural than anyone thought. Take into account soaring Latino and Asian-American birth rates, plus new efforts by President Obama to both increase legal immigration and convert 10 million-plus illegal immigrants to legal status, and it's easy to figure many of us will see the Rubicon of 50 percent-plus nation of color crossed in our lifetime. No longer is this a wait until 2050 or 2040. We're talking 2030-2035, perhaps sooner.

Latinos alone accounted for 55 percent of the total--that's total--U.S. population growth over the last decade, Census Bureau ethnicity chief Roberto Ramirez declared last month at an IRTS Foundation event in New York sponsored by Nuvo TV (name change from SiTV this July). If current fertility and immigration trends stay as is, "we're projecting 100 million-plus Latinos alone over the next 30-40 years," he said. Some Latino community officials believe in private that milestone could be shattered and go triple the current 50.5 million Bureau count if those current trends take an upward swing.

"The U.S. is transforming at a rate we haven't seen in the past," added Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program senior fellow at the same IRTS gathering. "More immigrants live now in the suburbs than in central cities. That's a huge change from the last few decades."

All the more impetus for TV to reflect this nation's multicultural society from stars on camera to show runners to the executive suite. Several recent initiatives give you hope that this reflection, better than ever and still miles to go, will grow by big rather than small leaps.

One is Comcast's commitment to launch at least 10 new independently-owned channels on all its cable systems nationwide by 2018, eight owned by African-Americans or Latinos. The company is now evaluating proposals for three of those channels--two African-American, one Latino--to premiere by January 2013. This commitment was a by-product of agreements reached by advocacy groups in the course of obtaining NBC Universal. Although Asian-American advocates did not pick up a minimum of four new channels compared to their African-American or Latino counterparts, Comcast already has cleared systems in its major markets for mNet, a new independently-owned pop culture net targeting Asians and a crossover audience, and Cinema Asian America On Demand, opening a video-on-demand window for AA film and videomakers.

What's more, Comcast vice president David Jensen, who oversees this new independent channel launch project, suggests there's room for more Indies owned by people of color--Asian-Americans and Native Americans included--to get national carriage. "We intend to over-deliver on this," he said when on Tomorrow Will Be Televised, my Internet radio/podcast-distributed program, last month. He used the word over-deliver several times in our interview. We'll see if that happens.

Second hopeful sign: The late summer launch of Bounce TV, a new over-the-air/cable combo network owned by and catering to African-Americans, with former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young among the investors. Bounce promises a diversity of programming from live sports to original scripted series.

Third hopeful sign: The New Voices project launched late last year by organizers of the annual Humanitas Prize. Each member of this consortium of TV networks, programmers and production companies agrees to develop two pilots for scripted series from emerging writers. Four pilots are in development so far, with more to come--consortium members include NBC Universal, HBO, Lionsgate and FX. Diversity in whose writing is a top New Voices priority.

A few others: Black Entertainment TV and TVOne increasing commitments to scripted fare, and in BET's case, commissioning Webisode series pilots from New York Television Festival entries and a new long-term production deal with The Game's creators; mun2 launching RPM Miami, its first U.S. produced bilingual drama, and LATV (another broadcast/cable combo-distributed net) moving into primetime news coverage.

Bottom line: here's trusting the broadcast networks step up their diversity effort this week. Should they not, and that's not a route to mosey, be heartened with the knowledge others will step in.

Until the next time, stay well and stay tuned!

Simon Applebaum is host/producer of Tomorrow Will Be Televised, the Internet radio/podcast-distributed series about the TV scene. The program runs live at 3 p.m. Eastern time, noon Pacific time, over www.blogtalkradio.com , with replays available 24/7 at www.blogtalkradio.com/simonapple04. Tomorrow podcasts are available for downloads over any mobile device through ITunes.com and other Web sites arranged by Sonibyte (www.sonibyte.com). Have a question or reaction? E-mail it to simonapple04@yahoo.com

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