Situation Report

THE show world has long made room for black stars, but they still tend to be restricted to playing what Harry Belafonte resentfully calls "Super-Negroes"--that is, roles that are one-dimensional and have little relevance to black reality. Generally, the characters they portray are admirable beyond plausibility. In television, blacks like Bill Cosby, Leslie Uggams and Flip Wilson have cleared the last hurdle, as headliners of their own shows. Of the networks' 72 prime-time series, twelve have black co-stars or featured players. In nonacting production jobs, a report on Hollywood film and TV studios showed that black employment increased 48% from 1968 to 1969.

Even so, blacks still total far less than 5% of the Hollywood work force, and there are no black producers, union sound men or makeup artists. As for executive positions, there is no black vice president at any TV network or major studio. Of the U.S.'s 6,338 commercial radio stations, 120 feature the "black sound," but blacks own only eleven of those stations. None of the nation's 690 TV channels is black-owned. Though blacks are virtually disfranchised by TV and get, at best, an hour a week of programming by and for them on a few local channels, there is no indication of a black tuneout. A recent Harris survey found that blacks watch an average 18.5 hours of TV a week compared to 14.7 hours for whites.

Harris also reported that blacks tended to watch less news but more National Educational Television, which has been far ahead of the commercial networks in black programming. Such heavy TV viewing has helped kill off the so-called "Chitlin' Circuit" of black variety houses. Harlem's famous Apollo, the Palace of the circuit, still survives and it is in trouble, say its owners. They are white.

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