ViacomCBS is letting go of staff amid a reorganization of its corporate diversity and inclusion department. Sources tell Variety that the cuts are concentrated in CBS’s legacy corporate-diversity department.
On Wednesday evening, NATPE presented its 17th annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards at a dinner in Miami. The winners (l-r): Marcos Santana, president of NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Global Studios; Courtney A. Kemp, television creator, producer and writer; Karey Burke, ABC Entertainment president; actress Christine Baranski; and Jeff Zucker, chairman, WarnerMedia News and Sports and president, CNN Worldwide. The dinner benefits the NATPE Educational Foundation, with a portion going to the Broadcasters Federation of America.
As the decade ends, nothing about TV is the same, whether it’s how much television we consume; how and where we do it; who gets to make it, and the level of respect given the creatively emboldened small screen. We don’t just watch TV, we binge it until we’re bleary-eyed if not sated. We still change channels with a remote control, but more often we’re logging in to watch shows on our phones or other devices and on our schedules, not network-dictated appointment TV.
With his company poised to merge once more with fellow media conglomorate Viacom, CEO Joe Ianniello on Tuesday addressed CBS’s diversity and inclusion efforts in a company-wide memo.
Exclusives
CBS Brass Face Criticism Over Diversity
Despite CBS programming programming chiefs touting their strides with diversity in front of and behind the camera today, they continued to come under fire by the TCA press corps for mismanaging inclusivity on the network’s reality programs like Big Brother and Survivor.
FCC media ownership deregulation took its latest trip to Philadelphia Tuesday (June 11) as the FCC defended its most recent rule changes against a challenge by Prometheus Radio Project in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The FCC defended its efforts, or in Prometheus’ view, its lack of them, on diversity.
Two new programs seek to boost inclusion among production coordinators and production assistants.
Larissa England has joined The E.W. Scripps Co. in the newly created role of equity, diversity and inclusion business partner. England joins Scripps’ corporate equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) team that […]
Jeanne Mau, a longtime programming and diversity exec at the company, has been promoted to SVP, entertainment diversity and inclusion. In her new role, Mau will supervise the CBS Directing Initiative and Writers Mentoring Program, while serving as liaison with other networks and studios in their diversity and inclusion efforts, and collaborating with producers and showrunners to ensure inclusivity in all aspects of their storytelling.
Collins | Diversity’s Vital Contribution To Industry Growth
A more diverse workforce presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly around acceptable workplace behavior. Critically assessing where you are will result in better content and a more profitable bottom line.
The FCC will host a daylong symposium on media diversity March 7. It will come a day after minority advocates are meeting in Washington for the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council Broadband & Social Justice Summit in Washington, an event that often features FCC commissioners weighing in on the state of diversity.
Diversity was once again front and center at the Golden Globe Awards as multiple winners used the kudocast as a bully pulpit to advocate for greater inclusion efforts throughout the entertainment industry.
Although many news organizations proudly showcase their commitment to diversity and inclusiveness, women in the media continue to be under-represented in bylines, behind editors’ desks and in boardrooms. Along with sexual harassment issues, stark differences in gender and wage parity have forced the industry to do some important work to create partnerships and initiatives that will encourage more diverse newsrooms.
The Hollywood Reporter has created a two-year training program that aims to increase the number of television and movie executives of color called the Young Executives Fellowship. Starting in April and continuing annually, 25 underrepresented and low-income high school juniors in Los Angeles will be selected to participate. Amazon Studios and the WME talent agency are sponsors, and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Martin Luther King III will sit on the advisory board.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actors and characters of Middle Eastern and North African descent are either ignored by TV or stereotyped, according to a new study. The few such actors […]
The FCC today took what it called “a historic and long overdue step” to increase ownership diversity in the radio industry. Specifically, it adopted requirements that will govern an incubator […]
For many actors with disabilities, their progress in Hollywood has lagged behind that of other minority performers demanding to be seen and hired. The reasons are complex, insiders and observers say, including unfounded concerns about added production costs, disability stereotypes and an industry clinging to entrenched habits.
Why Investment In Women Will Pay Off
Diversification isn’t merely the just thing to do; it’s also smart business.
A new study says some of the biggest newsrooms in the country are still failing to fulfill a nearly 50-year-old pledge to increase the employment of people of color in top masthead positions, despite repeated reviews and greater coverage of the issue.
The new crop of scripted broadcast series for 2017-18 season features low representation for women and people of color in the topmost roles both in front of and behind the camera. According to an analysis by Variety, white men make up a the majority of showrunners and lead actors on the new series ordered for the upcoming season.
The FCC will soon have a committee to advise the agency on promoting diversity in the communications industry. The agency will solicit suggestions from the public on who should sit on the panel, which will be called the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment.
How Newsrooms Can Stop Being So White
CNN’s Tanzina Vega: “At a time when so many people are questioning the validity of their media coverage, having people with a range of perspectives and backgrounds reporting the news is critical. The election of Donald Trump as president revealed just how deeply divided our country is when it comes to race and yet in the next few decades, people of color will become the majority of Americans. Still, very few feel adequately represented by the media.”
When it premiered in January 2015, Empire seemingly put to rest old assumptions that a program with a predominantly African-American cast couldn’t become such a mass-appeal hit. In some respects, though, the Fox series represents an outlier, arriving at a time when fewer and fewer shows achieve that level of success. Instead, entertainment is becoming more siloed, with an explosion of original programming that targets different segments of the audience.
Network Chiefs Grilled Over Diversity
Diversity and each of the networks’ track records of hiring women and minorities on both sides of the camera was the overriding theme of the 16-day Television Critics Assn. press tour, which ended Aug. 11. The number of inquiries from journalists on the subject made it clear that the question of when primetime will really begin to resemble America is far from settled, despite the fact that television has made big strides during the past decade.
Glenn Geller, head of CBS Entertainment, when asked about the network’s lack of diversity in its programming, said: “We need to do better. I understand the inclination to look at leads,” he said. “In the terms of ensemble diversity in our new shows, we are more diverse than we were last year. That’s our commitment to diversity, it’s ongoing.”
