CBS sets goal for 50% diversity in Unscripted TV
US productions such as Survivor & The Amazing Race will have targets of 50% diversity from 2021.
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US productions such as Survivor & The Amazing Race will have targets of 50% diversity under new moves by broadcaster CBS.
Unscripted shows will pursue at least 50% Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) amongst casting in the 2021-2022 broadcast season.
CBS will also allocate at least a quarter of its annual unscripted development budget to projects created or co-created by BIPOC producers and develop more initiatives with its production partners in the Unscripted.
“The reality TV genre is an area that’s especially underrepresented, and needs to be more inclusive across development, casting, production and all phases of storytelling,” said George Cheeks, president and CEO of the CBS Entertainment Group. “As we strive to improve all of these creative aspects, the commitments announced today are important first steps in sourcing new voices to create content and further expanding the diversity in our unscripted programming, as well as on our Network.”
CBS previously committed to making changes in Scripted, devoting 25% of its script development budget to projects created or co-created by BIPOC in the 2021-2022 season, and a minimum of 40% BIPOC representation in their writers’ rooms.
This week ViacomCBS Australia New Zealand pledged to increase NAIDOC and National Reconciliation Week activities next year and will follow a “no diversity, no commission” global policy.
Source: Variety
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7 Responses
Going from the current cast of The Amazing Race they are already at about 50% of the teams being BIPOC.
What ever happened into casting the best people that fit the show, no matter what colour they may be?
Of course that’s ideal but speaking for myself I’m starting to realise that based on my background and upbringing etc my idea of ‘casting the best people’ is in part a reflection of my own bias towards people who look and talk and think like me, and if I were in a position of casting for television it might be helpful if the organisation I worked for helped me to push myself to find a variety of voices to be represented on my show.
It resulted in one or two non-white people being cast each season who were inevitably voted off first.
That needs to be applied here as well, especially for Indigenous people who are totally underrepresented. Even MasterChef has not had an Indigenous contestant that I can recall.
Tom Mosby off the top of my head.
Can go further than that, we could get more indigenous people behind the cameras and allowing more space for indigenous writers, producers etc to bring their own voice to Australian television (not just limited to NITV etc)