Member Since: 4/7/2009
Posts: 34,961
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Quote:
After the 1980s, the major US television networks appeared to lose interest in black sitcoms, due in part to the success of series such as Seinfeld and Friends with a predominantly white cast. In the 1990s, newer networks such as Fox, The WB and UPN, anxious to establish themselves with a black audience, featured black sitcoms such as Martin and Living Single which drew high ratings among black households and were profitable even with a limited white viewership.[4][7][8][9] Though there were some black sitcoms successful with white audiences in the 1990s such as Family Matters, Moesha and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the number of new programs continued to decline. From 1997 to 2001, the number of black sitcoms on US television declined from 15 to 6 as white viewership declined,[10] and that decline has generally continued.[11] Civil rights organizations have accused networks of denying minorities equal opportunity as well as a broader participation in general television programming.[4]
By the early 2010s, black sitcoms had faded away on broadcast/network television (ABC, The CW, NBC, CBS, and FOX) but there are signs of a comeback on cable such as The Game, canceled in 2009 and then renewed on BET, A.N.T. Farm on Disney Channel, Are We There Yet? and Tyler Perry's For Better Or Worse on TBS, Love That Girl! on TV One, Let's Stay Together and Reed Between the Lines, on BET. Also, there have been a return of reruns of popular 1990s black sitcoms on BET, Centric, Bounce TV, TV Land, TV One and TBS.[4]
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Blacks will never win on television.
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