Reggie Rock Bythewood, a film and television writer, doesn't mind black sitcoms. "There are a lot of silly white shows," he points out. The problem "is that we don't have really a balance ... shows that would balance out some of the sillier shows."

Bythewood wrote and directed the HBO movie "Dancing in September," which deals with the subject of African-Americans on TV, focusing on how "African-American writers and executives deal with their working in an industry that permits this to go on." The film follows "a television writer moving up the ranks of the black sitcom world amid network boycotts from [a] civil rights organization" who is passionate about producing programs that are reflective of black people's lives. She's fired from a show for "speaking out against [its] racist characterizations," and so she pitches a new show that becomes a success.

Bythewood wrote for shows like NBC's "A Different World" and Fox's "New York Undercover." He began thinking about "Dancing in September" when "New York Undercover" eliminated a Puerto Rican actor and character to bring in more white characters.

Broadening a show's audience -- whether it's an African-American-oriented program or a program predominantly white in focus -- is sometimes a goal. Author Bogle says, "It's great if it connects to a larger audience as well, but we've been so starved for images, or images that we feel are not degrading, and that are progressive, that it is important how [the show] connects [with] that black audience."

Different shows do appeal to different audiences, and while black households and white households still predominantly like different television shows, there are signs that the gap may be closing. In 1996, for example, "Monday Night Football" was the only program that appeared on the Top 20 favorite shows of both black and white households. Now, however, eight of the Top 20 favorite shows in black homes are on the Top 20 lists of white homes as well, USA Today reported in April. And in February, the Washington Post reported a similar figure, calling it "the greatest common viewing experience in at least a decade."

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The SAG-commissioned African-American Television Report concludes with four recommendations for the television industry. First, it says, "African-American characters should be positioned more frequently as heroes/heroines in their respective shows."

Second, "shows with an 'opportunity' to add African-American series regulars should do so."

Third, African-American characters in predominantly white shows "should be developed more extensively."

And finally, "Writing staffs should be diversified so that stories told position minority performers for more meaningful roles."

It's that last suggestion report author Hunt considers the most crucial in the ongoing battle, because it will have a key effect on the rest. Still, "it will take ongoing, vigilant community pressure, I believe, to slowly peck away at the structural imbalances that define the industry today," Hunt says. "Only when this structure has been transformed will the issue of diversity become a nonissue. I am not too optimistic that this will occur anytime soon."

Johnson says that's primarily because networks "tend to take chances with what they know" -- falling back on familiar writers and producers, who often are white. And when they do take chances, airing a show like a black drama, he says, the networks "tend to ... play it way too safe, and as a result it's a little dry, it's a little preachy, it's a little boring."

In order for blacks to achieve a more representative balance on television, advertisers have to recognize the value of the audience; writers have to connect with important and significant ideas. And networks and their executives have to give African-American shows the "time to find an audience, and ... time for an audience to relate to the rhythm of a show and the premise of a show," just as they do for slow-starting but ultimately successful white shows like "Cheers" and "Family Ties," Bogle says.

Will more African-American actors help? Bogle thinks both quantity and quality are important. "I would like to see more, and I would like to see what's there to be accurate," he says. UPN's Nunan says that the network just "want[s] to do what feels natural. Frankly, what is natural for us is that our casts are diverse, and that's the way the U.S. is, and that to me is what's so bizarre about what our competition does, because it's so lily-white across the board."

And that's a problem, says Hunt. "As our most central cultural forum, we rely upon television to give us a sense of who we are, who we are not and who we hope to be," he says. "Wildly overrepresenting a dominant group on television at the expense of others influences this meaning-making process in ways that work against the ideals of an open and diverse society."

Hunt has a point. Culturally and socially, television plays a huge role in American lives. While television shows -- from "The Cosby Show" to "ER," "Moesha" to "Survivor" -- aren't just products for sale on a shelf at Wal-Mart, they do have an often significant impact on consumers. But networks don't treat them that way. No one wants to deny networks a right to make creative decisions or prohibit them from making money. But like companies that create toxic waste or develop products that have harmful side effects, networks and producers need to remain conscious of -- and be held accountable for -- the effects of their actions.

In a way, networks even have an obligation by nature of their very existence to accurately represent society and all of its members. "The networks keep pleading ratings and money ... but they keep conveniently forgetting that they exist by virtue of using the public airwaves," the Chicago Tribune's Johnson says. "And somewhere they ought to have a duty to do a better a job at representing the public and giving African-American kids images they can look at and see and feel proud of -- and just feel like they exist."

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