NCTA Group Seeks Diverse Programs
By STEVE DONOHUE -- Multichannel News, 4/2/2000 8:00:00 PM
New York-"Tune In to Kids and Family Week," the annual family-programming public-affairs initiative launched by the National Cable Television Association in 1997, is going away, an NCTA official said last Friday.
"Our cable networks are still the leaders in providing children' s programming. They' re still supporting those efforts. It just seemed that we didn' t need to promote a week and resources to further that. We could find some other project that we wanted to spend our resources on," NCTA vice president of public affairs Jim Ewalt said.
Last June, 66 cable networks participated in the initiative, carrying at least one half-hour of family, kids and educational programming during prime time.
The NCTA will continue to offer cable operators videotapes about family programming, which they can distribute to subscribers, Ewalt noted.
The association is now focused on creating a new yearlong diversity-programming initiative that could see participating cable networks schedule "diversity-focused" programs at least once a month, according to a draft of the proposal obtained last week.
The initiative would also include "eight to 12 high-profile screening events featuring major diversity-focused premiere programs," which would be sponsored by cable networks and local operators in both large and small systems.
Ewalt and NCTA vice president of communications David Beckwith emphasized that the proposal-discussed at an NCTA meeting here last Thursday attended by several network public-affairs executives-was used for brainstorming purposes at the meeting.
Network executives debated points in the proposal, including which programs would qualify as "diversity-focused" programming. The NCTA and network executives are now going back to the drawing board, Beckwith said.
There is no set timeline for launching the program, but the NCTA is committed to pursuing a new diversity initiative, Beckwith said.
"We recognize that society and the industry faces a problem, and we' re determined to work on it. We think we' ve done a lot, and we have a good story to tell, but we' re not satisfied and we' re going to do more," he added.
One of the biggest issues executives debated last week was how to determine which programs qualify as diversity-focused programs, sources said.
The diversity-programming initiative comes as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is turning up the heat on networks to increase the number of minorities that are featured in their programming. The NAACP is also surveying cable networks to gauge levels of minority employment, and it is expected to release a report soon.
The NCTA had proposed announcing the new initiative at July' s Television Critics Association tour, but some network executives were opposed to raising "an issue that is already sensitive" at the event, one network executive who attended last Thursday' s meeting said.
Some executives preferred that the new diversity program be announced the week of the diversity-themed Walter Kaitz Foundation dinner in September, sources said.
The National Association of Minorities in Communications would be involved with any diversity-programming initiative the NCTA pursues, Beckwith said.
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