You’ve got to give it to the new CW. They are the only major television network that can boast a block of black sitcoms. In fact when last I looked the CW is the only network that has any black shows this season. The Bernie Mack Show on Fox: Canceled. My Wife and Kids on ABC: Canceled. CBS and NBC never bothered to make any real atempt to target the black TV market. As much as black folk like to spend money I’m surprised everyone doesn’t have a black show just so they can advertise fast food and beer. MY Network TV (what a messed up name for a network) is such a train wreck I’m just waiting for the implosion. I watch black TV, so I will be watching the CW on Sundays (the only day I can see my people be funny on TV, four shows in a row). But isn’t it disturbing that no one else other than the CW has any interst in black entertainment? This is one monopoly that won’t be challenged any time soon. I need to get cable.
this entry on the freakonomics blog may or may not be of interest: http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/10/05/black-and-white-tv/
it purports to show that, more and more, blacks and whites are watching the same TV shows – or at least that the most popular shows are tending to be the most popular for both groups (he assumes there was some greater divergence in the past, although he makes no attempt to prove it).
we tend to like cable in our family mostly because you get more kids shows – noggin as well as pbskids and toondisney and boomerang and cartoon network. i almost never watch anything these days – the kids gets his 2 tivo’d shows per day (max) and the tv is off the rest of the time.