When the New Year’s Eve Ball dropped, ending 2020, the television industry was left licking its proverbial wounds after a year that saw a once-in-a-century pandemic leave an unprecedented mark on show productions and business operations. 

A silver lining through all the disruption was the growing influence of African-American images and storylines on those productions that did make the air. Sparked by the industry’s continued inclusion efforts both on- and off-screen — and fueled in part by last summer’s protests against social injustice — African-Americans continue to increase their presence across a wide spectrum of platforms and genres.

ALSO READ: Black History Month: What to Watch

“What we are seeing are more stories being told that reflect the African-American experience, and as such you are getting more positive representations of African-Americans,” OWN president Tina Perry said. “By the nature of it being more, you are absolutely getting more positive [portrayals] and better quality [content].”

Indeed, African-Americans have found success across the television spectrum both in front of and behind the camera. At last September’s 72nd Emmy Awards, African-American actors and actresses set a record for Emmys won in major acting categories for comedy, drama and limited series with seven. 

The achievement was led by Zendaya, who at age 24 became the youngest performer ever to win lead actress in a drama series for her role in HBO’s Euphoria, and Regina King, who picked up her fourth Emmy — tying Alfre Woodard for the most acting Emmys won by a black performer, according to the Los Angeles Times — for her leading role in HBO’s limited series Watchmen. 

More Representation, More Awards

African-American producers, directors and actors contributed to the 2021 awards-season buzz with several critically acclaimed original movies in 2020, including Netflix’s war drama Da 5 Bloods, directed by Spike Lee, as well as the Denzel Washington-produced film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman in his final role. More recently Amazon Prime Video’s One Night in Miami … produced by Regina King, has also received rave reviews.   

Black actors blazed their way into the superhero genre, with King’s Emmy-winning lead role in Watchmen, based on a 1986 DC Comics series; Anthony Mackie’s co-starring role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a Marvel Studios limited series launching on Disney Plus in March; and Javicia Leslie’s genre-shattering role as the female Caped Crusader in The CW’s Batwoman. 

Leslie said at last month’s CW Media Day that it’s frustrating that in 2021, her turn in Batwoman makes her the first African-American lesbian to star for a major studio. Breaking through that barrier now will only open the door for others to follow, she said. 

“When I was growing up I didn’t see versions of myself on the screen, especially a superhero, [in] movies and television shows,” she said. “I think that representation is so important, and I think that we deserve to have representation.”  

African-Americans also made strides in the horror/sci-fi genre, with directors such as Jordan Peele and Misha Green (Underground) producing HBO’s critically-acclaimed series Lovecraft Country — which on Feb. 3 picked up a Golden Globes nomination for best drama series —  and Whoopi Goldberg starring in the CBS All Access adaptation reboot of Stephen King’s The Stand. In 2021, Amazon will debut horror event series Them from director Lena Waithe (Showtime’s The Chi) as well as Ava DuVernay’s sci-fi thriller Dawn, based on Octavia Butler’s 1987 book.

Overall, Black actors accounted for the highest total share of screen among any racial minority group at 18%, exceeding their estimated 14% share of the U.S. population, Nielsen said in its December 2020 report Being Seen on Screen: Diverse Representation and Inclusion on TV.  The report, which examined the 100 most-watched shows each on broadcast, cable and SVOD services in 2019, also showed that 92% of those programs had some level of diversity — including women, people of color and/or LGBTQ+ individuals — in its cast.  

The data correlates with what has been a continual increase in the number of African-American images on-screen. The share of roles for Black actors on scripted shows during the 2018-19 TV season increased to 18% from 15.7% on broadcast; 18.2% from 17.5% on cable; and 11.9% from 10.1% for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services compared to the year prior, according to UCLA’s 2020 Hollywood Diversity Report: A Tale of Two Hollywoods.

Demand for Inclusive Content

While African-American viewers have always over-indexed in television viewing — Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for First Quarter 2020 showed that Black viewers watched more than five hours of programming per day,  well above that of Hispanics (2 hours, 40 minutes), Asians (1 hour, 54 minutes) and Whites (3 hours, 43 minutes) — their representation on screen is beginning to reflect the reality of TV’s audience, according to Nielsen VP of diverse insights and partnerships Charlene Polite Corley. 

“With the demand growing for inclusive content, I think the trend of including Black talent on-screen is here to stay and I hope we see more of it,” Corley said. “What our data shows is that there’s so much opportunity to tell even more stories and to provide more opportunity for diverse talent, including Black talent.”

Eric Deggans, TV critic for National Public Radio, added that African-American viewers want to see themselves reflected on the screen, so it behooves distributors to provide inclusive content to draw not only black viewers, but all viewers. The 2020 Horowitz Research Group State of Viewing & Streaming survey reported that 64% of all viewers found it appealing to watch TV shows that tell the stories of diverse communities different from their own. 

“We’re at a point now where cable and broadcast television especially can’t
afford to take any viewers for granted, so it makes more sense for them to offer shows that feature Black casts,” said Deggans, author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation.

While African-Americans have experienced other blips of increased representation on TV only to see them dissipate over time, actress/comedian Kym Whitley said this time the movement within the industry feels like more than just a trend.

“We’re at the beginning of something great, so therefore there are opportunities I feel that have opened up,” said Whitley, who last year appeared in BET’s Twenties. “I believe that after all the [social injustice] protests and the speaking out of people saying that what we’re seeing is wrong, I think it’s becoming more evident that this moment has to take place. I believe the world has opened up and now everyone is looking.” 

Indeed, last summer’s protests sparked by the May killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers helped influence the further infusion of African-American talent both in front of and behind the camera. Industry executives said the movement and its focus on issues regarding racial inequities in education, law enforcement and employment have energized content producers to create programming that better reflects the voices and images of their audience. 

ALSO READ: Netflix, HBO Lead NAACP Image Awards Nominations

In the aftermath of the protests, industry executives said diversity initiatives such as last July’s CBS Television Studios and NAACP content production partnership‚ which sees CBS work with the civil rights organization to acquire, develop and produce more diverse programming — has fostered opportunities for more inclusive programming for years to come. 

“The industry has been talking about diversity and inclusion for some time now and we would have gotten to this point eventually, but I do think the George Floyd death last May quickened the pace and made everyone think more about race issues and racial justice in America as well as issues about diversity,” OWN’s Perry said. “In our industry people took it to heart, and some of the results we are seeing are about people being more thoughtful about those issues in light of a lot of the protests and conversations that happened last year about racial injustice in America.”

Added Nielsen’s Corley: “I think after a year like 2020, it can’t all help but be connected. We have seen audiences gravitate to content not just for entertainment but also a way to help be informed about some of the things that were happening, particularly after the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.” 

Will Progress Stick? 

Still, some executives are not sure that the industry is fully committed to inclusion. 

“We’re seeing strides in the right direction, but I feel it’s too early to say if there is a real change happening or a moment coming out of everything that happened over the summer last year,” producer/writer and showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll (The CW’s All American) said on a panel during WarnerMedia’s January virtual Sundance experience. “This industry has so much to make up for because it’s been so systemic for so long that the jury is still out until I see where we are a few years from now.” 

OWN’s Perry said one way to assure that African-American images and stories remain at the forefront of the industry is for the top executives at the major studios and production companies to be inclusive.

“Inclusion and diversity has to be at the forefront of all hiring and programming decisions — that means writers, producers, directors, network and studio executives,” she said. “Empowering those people is the first step to ensuring that diverse stories are pitched, purchased, developed and presented about African-American life.”

Added Whitley: “I remember an executive producer told me that we hire who we know, but now you have to do a little extra work. Just because you don’t know us, we’re there. When you know better, you’ll do better.” 

Pandemic quarantines and social injustice protests around the country have led to more African-American consumers viewing TV content, and has fueled those viewers’ desire to see more content that represents and depicts them, according to Nielsen.

Going into the pandemic, African-Americans were watching 13 more hours of traditional television a week than white viewers during first-quarter 2020, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for second quarter 2020. As Black viewers settled in and began working from home this summer, they continued to watch more television than other ethnic groups, according to Cheryl Grace, Nielsen’s senior VP of U.S. strategic community alliances and consumer engagement. 

During August, 24% if African-Americans were watching video content while working from home, compared with 16% of the overall population, Grace said at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference on Sept. 18. “Many of us have the television on without the sound,” she said. 

For the week of March 23, 60% of the top 20 shows among African-Americans age 2 and older had majority Black casts, Nielsen reported, compared to just two such shows among the general population. “What it shows is that if you build it, they will come,” Grace said. “We’ve seen an increase between 2016 and today of about 4.6% of content being reflective of African-Americans, but we still have a long way to go. We make up 14% of the population, so it’s not lost on us that we’re not yet as reflective in content as we are in the population.” 

Grace’s comments support a recent National Research Group survey, which found that more than three in four African-Americans believe media outlets perpetuate negative stereotypes of them and that more content reflective of their lives is needed.

The survey of 1,300 Americans also revealed that 92% of African-Americans and 82% of all Americans want to see more diverse stories with characters that break racial stereotypes. Three in four Americans (74%) also said content being representative of different cultures or people is a key factor when choosing what to watch. 

“The high level of consumer interest in diverse stories and voices surfaced very strongly in this research,” said Cindi Smith, VP of the diversity, equity and inclusion practice at National Research Group. “We believe our insights can inspire creators and marketers to get behind stories that offer a fresh point of view and bring to light more multifaceted identities.” 

African-Americans should continue to pressure cable networks to create more content that reflects their lives and to put more people of color both in front
of and behind the camera, UMC chief content officer Brett Dismuke said at the Congressional Black Caucus conference. African-Americans “account for 25% of box-office receipts but also account for 30% to 35% of cable viewing statistics,” Dismuke said. “We have to demand from [industry] CEOs and our networks that the decision-making rooms have to reflect their viewership.”

After most of 21st Century Fox was sold to The Walt Disney Co. in 2019, Fox Television Stations executives realized that if they wanted to be in the over-the-top space, they needed to make something happen. So FTS CEO Jack Abernethy decided to serve one of Fox’s core communities by launching a targeted streaming network.

After hosting several “listening sessions” to discover what people might be seeking content-wise, “it became obvious that the constituency that we already served best, African Americans, was the constituency we needed to keep focusing on,” said Stephen Brown, executive VP of programming and development, Fox Television Stations.

FTS then developed the idea for Fox Soul, which aims to give the African-American audience a place where it can gather as a community to have an authentic conversation.

Fox Soul is a pure OTT play: It’s available online at FoxSoul.TV, as an app on the iOS and Android platforms, as well as on connected TVs such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and soon Philo and Xumo TV. There are no plans to turn the service into a linear network; Fox Soul’s executives and hosts prefer the unregulated freedom of an OTT offering.

Fox Soul is advertising supported and free to watch.

Driven by Interactivity

The key differentiator for Fox Soul is that it’s live and interactive for four hours a night, five nights a week. It’s already looking to expand that lineup with an additional hour.

“The mission is to have a place where you feel safe to come and talk outside of your own home,” Fox Soul head of programming James DuBose said. “We are speaking from our soul to your soul and vice versa. And because we are live and interactive, we’re able to tackle topics without watering them down.”

Fox Soul’s programming lineup, which officially premiered Jan. 13 after launching in a soft beta test in October, falls under four themes. Starting at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET, Out Loud with Claudia Jordan offers an hour of female empowerment, followed by an hour of inspiration with On the 7 with Dr. Sean, hosted by pastor Dr. Sean McMillan, who takes on topics of faith.

At 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET, Fox Sports’s Mike Hill and record producer Donny Harrell lead conversations that black men might be having in a barbershop on The Mike and Donny Show. And at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET, Los Angeles radio DJ Tammi Mac introduces the community to up-and-coming talent on The Tammi Mac Late Show, celebrating black culture through music, comedy, performance and the spoken word.

“We’re starting a network where we want to uplift and show black excellence,” Mac said. “To me, black excellence is the people in the community that you don’t necessarily get to see but who are constantly making a difference. It’s people who have successful small businesses or people who are entertainers but you don’t know them because they aren’t Beyoncé. That’s the black excellence that I want to portray.”

Viewers can call in or leave a comment or a question on the app and the hosts can react in real time on the air. All four shows are shot on a single soundstage in Los Angeles, with producers running in to change the sets between shows.

“I love every bit of being live,” Mac said, who hosts a drive-time radio program on KJLH (which stands for kindness, joy, love and happiness) Los Angeles from 3 to 7 p.m. PT each weekday. “You never know what’s going to happen and that means that the show is never, ever the same. It will always be different, always be new and there’s always something to look forward to.”

Beyond the four — and soon to be five — hours of live primetime on Fox Soul, there are also pre-taped shows airing at other times, such as Fox’s syndicated talk program, Dish Nation, which shows radio DJ teams from different markets chatting about the pop-culture news of the day.

Fox Soul also programs locally produced shows such as Street Soldiers with Lisa Evers, a hip-hop focused program that has aired on WNYW New York since 2016; Later with Leon, hosted by Leon Rogers from WFLD Chicago; The Q, hosted by Quincy Harris from WTXF Philadelphia; and Isiah Factor: Uncensored, hosted by Isiah Carey from KRIV Houston.

With the NAACP set to open its 51st annual Image Awards on Feb. 22, celebrating the achievements of people of color in the media, it’s not BET, TV One or OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network with the most nominations among networks.

It is Netflix, with 30.

Netflix, along with BET+, Bounce’s Brown Sugar and Urban Movie Channel, are leading the charge among streaming services to challenge African American-targeted cable networks for the hearts, eyeballs and dollars of viewers who are voracious for content that reflects their images and stories. In response, cable networks such as TV One, BET and OWN have doubled down on original fare in an effort to remain viable.

The result has been an unprecedented amount of quality content targeted to African-American viewers. “The streaming competition that the black networks are facing has provided additional pressure for those networks to up their content game,” Cheryl Grace, Nielsen’s senior VP of U.S. strategic community alliances and consumer engagement, said. “I think they have done that. They know that they have to compete with binge-watching on platforms that are increasingly serving up content in really large doses.”

Streaming platforms have indeed become more competitive in appealing to an African-American viewer who watches more than 50 hours of live and time-shifted television a week — more than 10 hours above the total population, according to Nielsen’s 2019 Diverse Intelligence Series (DIS) report. Netflix has generated headlines by securing top African-American producers such as Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rhimes to develop original content.

Nearly 40% of African-American viewers subscribe to Netflix, according to Nielsen, followed by Hulu at 15% and Amazon Prime Video at 14%. Further, Horowitz Research survey Focus TV & Video Content reported that 60% of African-American viewers feel that original content offered by brands like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are more reflective of America’s diversity than shows on broadcast and cable networks.

DuVernay said Netflix over-indexes with African- American viewers, which contributes to her work’s strong performance on the platform. When They See Us drew more than 23 million viewers within its first month of release last May. “I’ve enjoyed a great amount of freedom there, so they are doing fine by me,” she said.

Other African-American-targeted streaming services are seeing increased audience numbers. Urban Movie Channel (UMC), which offers classic and original African-American targeted movies and series, has seen subscriptions for its $4.99 monthly service increase by 400% over the past 18 months, according to Brett Dismuke, UMC chief content officer. The service, the brainchild of BET founder Bob Johnson and his RLJ Entertainment, which was purchased by AMC Networks in November 2018, has benefited from AMC’s marketing and promotional muscle.

Along with original drama series like Craig Ross Jr.’s Monogamy and Stuck With You, the service offers popular shows from sister cable services WE tv and AMC such as Marriage Boot Camp: Hip Hop Edition and Growing Up Hip Hop.

Better Black Streaming

“Our mission is to stream black better,” Dismuke said. “When looking at our direct competitors, we have the most offerings of exclusive, original content. Our growth is attributable to the content that we’re providing.”

Nielsen’s Grace said the growing appeal in African-American content on streaming services has caused the industry to realize black viewers are not monolithic in their viewing choices.

The increase in streaming viewing hasn’t come at the expense of African-American targeted cable networks, she added. “If anything, we may see a spike in African-American viewership because viewers have to keep up with all of the new content.”

Indeed, OWN said its viewership grew last year as its original content continued to resonate with viewers despite the competition. The network’s relationship-themed unscripted content — OWN recently renewed Black Love, Love & Marriage: Huntsville, Black Women OWN the Conversation and Ready to Love — as well as veteran original scripted series like Queen Sugar and Greenleaf, have made OWN the most-watched cable network by African-American women.

“We are aware of the competitive marketplace, so our strategy has been more, more and more content for our viewers,” OWN president Tina Perry said. “Despite the attempts by over-the-top services to put more African-American content out there and attract that viewer, we’re still finding success.”

BET is positioned to serve African-American viewers on linear TV and streaming platforms. BET+, which launched in September, is a complement to the 41-year old BET basic cable network, which has parlayed its 2019 production deal with Tyler Perry into two scripted series, The Oval and Sistas.

BET+ general manager Devin Griffin said the programmer’s two offerings provide viewers with the best of both worlds. “For cord-cutters and cord-nevers, we are seeing the vision and plan that we laid out of BET+ being consumed as a complement to BET across a number of different vectors,” Griffin said, although he would not disclose BET+ subscriber numbers. “We really look at the various platforms where people can engage with the BET brand as being an interlocking ecosystem. BET+ is intended to help us expand the tent on what we’re able to offer in combination with linear.”

Long-running service to the African-American audience gives established linear channels the inside track as they launch streaming platforms, TV One senior vice president of programming Brigitte McCray said. She said the network’s lineup of unscripted series, including music documentary show Unsung and true-crime series Fatal Attraction, as well as its 2020 schedule of 10 original movies, will help TV One stay in the forefront of African-American viewing choices.

“There’s no doubt that our competitors at Netflix and Amazon have realized how important and rich the African-American audience is,” McCray said. “Without a doubt, it’s our space, and nobody knows and serves that audience better than us. TV One is unapologetically in the black people business, and we represent authentic voices and black storytelling through the lens of black culture.”

Crossover Content

As more shows featuring African-American leads and storylines roll out on all platforms, industry executives said such shows are also appealing to a mainstream audience. “Shows like Greenleaf, David Makes Man and even Empire have black viewers as their core constituency, but other viewers are tuning in as well because they like the storylines and the storytelling,” said Eric Deggans, National Public Radio television critic and author of Race- Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation.

Shows such as Fox’s Empire, which finished 2018 in the top 20 among both African-Americans and total viewers 18-plus, and Starz’s Power, the most-viewed premium cable show among African-Americans and second only to Game of Thrones among all viewers, prove shows with predominantly African-American casts can draw a broad audience.

“The color of this revolution in African-American television is not black, it’s green,” Power creator and executive producer Courtney Kemp said. “This content is making people money right now.”

And there’s no end in sight. With new projects coming down the line from Kemp (Power Book II: Ghost); Lena Waithe (BET’s Twenties); DuVernay (OWN’s Cherish the Day); Perry (BET’s House of Payne revival Assisted Living); Zöe Kravitz (Hulu’s High Fidelity); and Jordan Peele (Amazon’s The Hunters and HBO’s Lovecraft County), African-American audiences will have plenty more content to DVR and binge-watch for the foreseeable future.

“If you see a bunch of people running to target an audience, there must be a sense that there is enough audience there for people to grab,” Deggans said. “If there wasn’t an audience to be served, you wouldn’t see these big programmers developing so many shows targeted to black audiences.”

DuVernay said it’s a great time for an African- American producer. “There’s no longer the stigma of moving from movie to TV to music video to short-form,” she said. “We as storytellers can now do it all.”

Marvel’s latest entry into the superhero movie genre collection, Black Panther (pictured), is breaking multiple box office records and with numerous cast members of African and Caribbean descent, it’s already igniting the national conversation about immigrants from these parts of the world.

Regrettably though, even amid the prevalence of February’s Black History Month storytelling, the narrative of the foreign-born black American community is still largely a secret. African and Caribbean immigrants have historically made noteworthy contributions to American society; however, their unique stories are often lost in the media’s depiction of the black American experience.

Does it surprise you that roughly one in five black Americans is foreign-born or are descendants of immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean?

In an article published Jan. 28, a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data placed the black immigrant population and their children at 18% of the total black population in the U.S. in 2016.

What this means to most demographers is that the market of foreign-born black Americans and their offspring numbers 8 million strong, at a minimum.

Clearly, this is a sizeable enough audience that shouldn’t be ignored; however, I can’t seem to recall there being any regularly scheduled programs or specials on broadcast or cable TV that reflect the experiences of this audience segment.

As far as I can tell, the stories of the foreign-born black American experience are nearly invisible on both mainstream TV as well as on any of the channels targeted to black audiences, even though there are some compelling reasons to recognize that the U.S. black population is not homogeneous.

Here are a few more facts from the U.S. Census about this target market that you may not know:

• The black immigrant population has increased five-fold since 1980.
• About half (49%) of the foreign-born black population is from the Caribbean, with Jamaica and Haiti being the largest source countries.
• Between 2000 and 2016, the number of immigrants from Africa doubled and they now make up about 39% of the overall foreign-born black American population.
• U.S.-born black Americans have a median age of 29 compared to immigrants from Africa (37) and from the Caribbean (47).
• Household incomes for some well-represented black immigrant groups are quite impressive, namely Nigerians ($94,030), Guyanese ($76,316) Ghanaians ($74,500) and Jamaicans ($72,237).
• Overall, 31% of adults 25 or older in the U.S. have a college degree, however among Nigerian-American adults, 59% have bachelor’s degrees or higher.
• In some black immigrant communities, more than 60% of the population are home owners, namely Guyanese (65.1%), Eritreans (63.4%) and South Africans (63.4%).
• Perhaps the most impressive characteristic of the foreign-born black American community is their economic connection to home. The Inter-American Development Bank reported that nearly $10 billion was remitted to the Caribbean in 2015, mainly from immigrants living in the United States. Similarly, economists calculate that Africans living in the Diaspora remit more to their homeland annually than all the aid from Western countries, combined.

In an era where all rating points and consumer dollars matter, the benefit of serving up more relevant programming reflecting the total black experience should be apparent. Programmers and advertisers, hungry for new “underserved” markets, must realize that there is an economic advantage to effective target marketing.

Interestingly, there is an impressive list of well-known celebrities of Caribbean and African origin and ancestry who could be allies in an initiative to engage this target market.

You can probably name a few, like Lupita Nyong’o (Kenya), Rihanna (Barbados) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Nigeria), but a quick Google search will uncover quite a few others who you may never have known had roots in the Caribbean or Africa, namely Nia Long (Trinidad), LL Cool J (Barbados), Thandie Newton (Zimbabwe), Kandyse McClure (South Africa), even Al Roker (Bahamas). Many of these artists might relish an opportunity to create content that reflects their ancestral roots.

So, if you are a TV programmer or advertiser who has not recognized these segments of the black audience during Black History Month, luckily there are other opportunities to reach both the African and Caribbean communities.

June is Caribbean American Heritage Month, a time recognized by the U.S. Congress and the White House to celebrate the contributions that people of Caribbean descent have made to our country. Africa Day, May 25th, is an occasion established by the African Union to commemorate the independence of all 54 African nations.

Mark Walton is currently president of sales & marketing for One Caribbean Television and was previously EVP, sales & marketing at The Africa Channel. He also teaches part-time in the Media Studies department at The New School. Pictured: Lupita Nyong’o and Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther.

With the breadth and depth of media options available to consumers, it’s not surprising that U.S. households are increasing their overall daily media consumption. Multicultural viewers — and African-American viewers in particular — are at the forefront of that consumption, according to Nielsen’s most recent Total Audience Report.

Between first-quarter 2015 and Q1 of this year, TV households increased their total daily media consumption (via smartphones, Internet on PCs, terrestrial radio and live TV) by one hour, to 10 hours and 39 minutes. As a group, African-Americans were the most voracious media consumers, increasing their total consumption of such media by one hour and 13 minutes during the period to more than 13 hours a day, according to Nielsen.

Much has been made of the consistent drop in live TV viewing hours over the past few years, and while overall live viewing hours dropped by three minutes across all viewers year-to-year, African-American viewing actually increased by one minute on a year-to-year basis, according to the report. Live TV viewing also represents more than half of all daily media consumption by African-Americans, according to Nielsen.

Why is this relevant? It would behoove content creators and distributors looking to create the next big TV hit to consider creating more programming targeting the audience that’s most likely to seek out content on various distribution platforms. A good portion of those viewers and users would most likely be young and multicultural consumers who like to see their images and stories reflected on the screens they’re spending a lot of time with.

As the Horowitz Associates State of Cable and Digital Media Multicultural 2016 report confirmed, 64% of African- American viewers, 57% of Hispanic viewers and 50% of Asian-American viewers said content that keeps diverse audiences connected to their respective cultures drives their overall viewing decisions.