From "The Cosby Show" to "Will & Grace" and "Grey's Anatomy," television has come a long way to reflect more of the country's racial and ethnic diversity.
But much more progress could be made, according to a report released Thursday.
The diversity survey, issued by members of the Multi-Ethnic Media Coalition, gave mostly mediocre marks to the major broadcast networks for diversity in front of and behind the camera. The report assigns grades based on figures provided by Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS.
"There is improvement, but it's so minuscule it's like we're inching forward at glacier speeds," said Michael Huh, vice president of marketing and strategic development for ImaginAsian, a new channel that targets an Asian American audience.
"There is going to be a continuation of more topic-specific channels because of demand consumers put out there," he said.
ImaginAsian is one of two channels launched since 2004 to focus on specific programming to cater to a more diverse audience. LOGO targets a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, audience.
Major networks should start paying attention to the prediction that by 2050, minority groups will make up a majority of the U.S. population, said Sandra Combs Birdiett, College of Communication Arts and Sciences multicultural affairs director.
"The mainstream media needs to wake up and see that if they do not devote some time, energy, space and airtime to the minority population, they'll get their own or just not partake in what they're offering," she said. "The main focus of these new media ventures is because they cannot get those stories told properly in mainstream media."
The coalition began issuing its diversity report cards in 1999, when a nearly all-white schedule of new network series provoked an outcry from civil rights groups, leading to agreements by broadcasters to improve their performance.
LaJoya Johnson, an interdisciplinary studies in social science senior, said channels that target minorities, such as LOGO, ImaginAsian, BET, Telemundo and Univision, are necessary.
"Mainstream channels like CBS and ABC do not focus on the LGBT community at hand," Johnson said. "Just like they have BET for African Americans, they have LOGO for LGBT people. It should have been done a long time ago."
She said programs such as "Will and Grace," which features two gay main characters, on mainstream channels bring a wider audience, but are limited.
Huh said ImaginAsian was started by five Asian Americans because they want their children to have TV programming they can relate to.
"Not much has changed since then — now it's Jet Li instead of Bruce Lee as far as Asian characters," Huh said. "Instead of bitching about it, we decided to get together and do something about it."
The channel's programs include Korean dramas, Bollywood films and "Uncle Morty's Dub Shack," a channel original featuring movies dubbed over as spoofs.
Huh said the channel likes to see itself as a Food Network or ESPN — a channel with a broad theme. In this case, the focus is Asian culture. Huh said the channel is not limited to a specific audience by language or country.
"We're for anyone who likes anything Asian," Huh said.
Dan Fuller, an associate professor of English at Kent State University, said the focus of bringing more minorities to TV programs began in the 1960s with Bill Cosby.
Fuller has also been a chair for the television segment of the Popular Culture Association for about 20 years. He said over time, there has been a greater push to increase minority presence, but the programming is not quite there yet.
"I don't think TV will support 2,000 channels, or that the market can," Fuller said. "I think we'll see fewer channels, but an increase in special-interest programming.
"There will be some crossover, but we will see audience-targeted TV dominate the market. I don't know if the markets can survive in their present states, because cable has the capacity to do that."
Despite some established targeted programming, such as Telemundo, Univision or BET, television doesn't accurately reflect minority populations on a broad scale, said Rosa Morales, director of MSU's Hispanics and Minorities in Journalism program.
"For 10 years, minority professional associations have been working and meeting with the networks to increase contents and programs and opportunities for producers and others," she said.
She said some programming targeted to minority audiences is lacking in quality.
"The English-language networks, they need to improve," Morales said. "Very rarely do we have someone in those offices calling those shots who are Hispanic or have an awareness of that."
Morales said programming isn't always decided by concerns for diversity but rather by advertisers.
"What they're looking at is not necessarily the color of peoples' skin, but the color of money," Morales said. "As they see Hispanic-consumer power, you will begin to see more Latino power."
But Combs Birdiett said the channels' market is created because people demand it.
"Those groups do not see themselves in enough positive light in the mainstream media, therefore they create their own," she said.
Jasmine Gary, a social relations senior and the exiting president of Black Student Alliance, said she'd like to see a better portrayal of the real issues that people, especially minorities, face daily.
Gary said this is based on viewer perception. She gives the example of two shows which portray black college students, the newer "College Hill" and an older show, "A Different World."
"A Different World," a spinoff of "The Cosby Show," was a sitcom that focused on the lives of students at a fictional historically black college; "College Hill" is a BET reality show about students at a historically black college or university.
"'A Different World' is a positive portrayal," Gary said. "'College Hill' is not representative of black college students, of what they do or face. It's like, 'Oh my gosh, why are they showing this on TV?' This is negative, nothing of what I go through."
Gary said networks focus on specific groups when they address minority issues.
"They seem to cater more toward stereotypes of those groups, or how another group defines that group, more than actual issues and things the group may deal with," she said. "Very few shows tackle the realities of that population."
But for other groups, there is no representation at all. All of the networks received "F" grades for representation of American Indians in the diversity survey.
Don Lyons, a hospitality business senior and co-chair for the Native American Indigenous Student Organization, said U.S. programming doesn't show contemporary issues related to American Indians on TV.
"It lacks tremendously in a lot of aspects," Lyons said. "(In the U.S.) you only see natives as cowboys-and-indians images, who dress in deerskin. It's perpetuating the stereotypes."
Lyons said the best way to stop these stereotypes is to address them at the most basic levels, starting with educating students about the history of native people in the U.S.
A more immediate solution, he said, would be to put more pressure on getting American Indian representation on TV, which includes more exposure for native writers and producers.
Morales agrees.
"That'll be the proof of how effective the industry is in casting actors and actresses from strong ethnic backgrounds — are they crossed over or slotted to play one type of role," she said. "If Caucasians can play all sorts of roles, including minority roles, then it should go the other way, too."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lauren Phillips can be reached at phill383@msu.edu.
