NAACP To Take New Actions To Increase Television Diversity.

Kweisi Mfume, President & CEO, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) said that stronger actions, including economic sanctions, might be needed to encourage greater diversity within the television networks.

Mfume said the report card released by the television diversity coalition is just one measure of the progress or lack of progress that has been made since he highlighted the problem in 1999. Although the NAACP did not participate and has not seen the report card being distributed today by the media coalition, Mfume said that efforts such as this are nonetheless still laudable.

Mfume said the NAACP would release it’s own wide-ranging report of the television industry during the national convention in July. “One year after the signing of preliminary agreements, we are very much concerned that more progress has not been made,” Mfume said.

“We remain very committed to increasing both diversity and opportunities in network television. At our July national convention we will release a detailed assessment that takes a broad look at every aspect of the television industry.” He noted that a recent study of the 2000-2001 seasons by the advocacy group, Children Now, showed all the major networks remain predominately white.

Mfume said the NAACP remains wedded to its basic goals, including the hiring of more minorities in front of and behind the cameras, contracts with minority vendors and professional services. The NAACP initiated talks with the four major networks prior to the forming of the coalition that led to the NAACP and other coalition members signing agreements to increase opportunities for people of color in programming as well as the executive, production and talent ranks of network television.

“We still haven’t seen a greater willingness to empower qualified African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans with the ability to green light programs and to make other significant decisions regarding what finally gets on the air, said Mfume. “Since 1999, the networks have made some progress, but we know that more can be done,” said Mfume. The NAACP will continue to look at the viability of enacting Federal Communications Commission rules that would limit the percentage of prime time programming a network would be allowed to own. ”Such restrictions would allow more minority-owned and developed programming to reach the American public without being bottlenecked by the old boy business network that is punitive, restrictive and Draconian,” Mfume said.

He said he would present the NAACP board shortly with several significant options that might be used to force networks to facilitate greater diversity. “In addition to the possibility of a sustained economic boycott aimed at one of the four major networks, the NAACP will consider asking the FCC and Congress to reimpose the fin-syn rule and might propose that the Children’s Television Act serve as a model for Congress to mandate that networks increase minority programming,“ Mfume said. “The Children’s Television Act, which mandates three hours of children’s programming on a network a week, could and should be applied as a precedent to help increase diversity on TV.”