National Latino Media Council Gives FOX Network an “F” in Diversity

Yesterday the National Latino Media Council published its annual Television Network Report Cards and pretty much took FOX Network Groups by giving it an "overall 'F' in its diversity commitment and performance."

A release shared with news outlets said the following about FOX: 

For years, NLMC has highlighted FOX's lack of transparency in providing clear and complete information to evaluate diversity performance. Two years ago when a new diversity team was created at the network we were hopeful for positive change. To our surprise there was change, but only for the worse. For the last couple of years the FOX Diversity team has been unresponsive to NLMC's request for timely and complete data. They seem not to care about our timeline nor the years of collaboration and work accomplished through the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) signed thirteen years ago. We have known and collaborated with FOX'sChairman of Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, for years, ever since he was at NBC and he has been a man committed to diversity. We are now hopeful that Reilly will address this unacceptable situation immediately.

In the meantime, NLMC gave NBC an "A-" because the network's "diversity strength comes from their behind the camera talent, and although it lacks in the key area of in front of camera actors, they have pulled forward as leader of the diversity network pack." CBS earned a "B+" and said that CBS needs improvement in "increasing its number of Latino scripted regulars and to have more consistency in the number of Latino Writers/Producers." ABC got a "B" because the network still "has no Latino Creative Executives on its creative team."

"After thirteen years of working with the networks through the Memoranda of Understanding, we are at a collaborative stage with all of the networks, except for FOX," said Alex Nogales, President & CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Secretariat for the National Latino Media Council stated. "The networks ABC, CBS and NBC are finally paying attention to the Latino audience, especially now that it represents $1 trillion in purchasing power, projected to increase to $1.5 trillion by 2015, and because it represents 16.7% of the nation's population. We see positive internal changes taking place at the three networks and expect that these changes will translate into an accelerated hiring of Latinos in all areas."

The report is an interesting one, but we would like to make a suggestion for the next year? Add a category called, "Portrayal of Latino Stereotypes," since even though ABC has a relatively more diverse group of shows (and we do say, "relatively," since it can always be better), the best ABC can offer is a Sofía Vergara character? We co do so much better.

You can catch a recording of the whole conference here.