From Narrowcasting to Algorithms: Why Black Programming Disappears from View
By Lisa M. Anderson
Once upon a time, in 1993, there was this little television show about five post-college friends, trying to make it in the Big City. They lived in the same building; the guys lived in one apartment, and the women lived in another apartment. We follow them through their ups and downs in work and relationships, as they become adults on their own. There are some serious issues, but it’s a comedy, so there is always a happy ending.
If you think I’m referring to the NBC sitcom Friends, you’re a year too early. I’m referring to Living Single. If you never saw it then, you can always catch reruns on Max or Hulu Plus, and you can read my analysis of its importance in Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape. But the fact that you might have thought I was talking about Friends, and that you might not have heard of Living Single, illustrates the point that I’d like for you to consider here.
[Deborah Feingold, Cast of Living Single (including Queen Latifah, Kim Fields, Erika Alexander and Kim Cole), 2000]
When Fox agreed to broadcast Living Single in 1993, it was in the middle of what is termed narrowcasting. On Sunday evenings, Living Single was broadcast right after Martin in the 8:30pm timeslot. In the next season, it moved to Thursday night – and NBC scheduled Friends at the same time. For most of its run, it ended up being opposite of its white copy. Importantly, on Fox, Thursday nights featured black programming, such as Martin, Between Brothers, and New York Undercover. Living Single never made it into a top Nielsen rating, and only lasted four and a half years – in the same time when Queen Latifah, one of the show’s key stars, was a popular hip hop artist (in fact, her album Black Reign was released in 1993, and featured her hit song U.N.I.T.Y.).
During the 1990s, black-themed programming was almost exclusively broadcast on the ‘new’ networks: Fox, UPN, and The WB. There was little to no black-themed programming on the major networks. So, if you were in the know, you could catch things like Living Single. But if the narrowcast missed you, then you missed it. If you went by the “big three” networks in the mid-1990s, you never saw a bunch of black programming that included Moesha, Sister, Sister, The Jamie Foxx Show, or Girlfriends.
Narrowcasting was popular during the 1990s, and allowed networks (well, the new networks) to invest in programming that they knew would reach a smaller audience. On the one hand, this meant that black shows got made and had an audience – which, if left to the “big three” would not have happened, at least not at this time. And the fact that these shows were produced and broadcast, meant that the people who worked on those shows – from the production teams to the actors – got significant experience that they could parlay into other projects. What exists today in terms of black programming owes much to those creatives in the 1990s who were able to gain valuable experience on the shows that were on these ‘upstart’ networks, aimed at black audiences.
We might have hoped, with the advent and now supremacy of streaming services, that narrowcasting might go away, and in many respects, it has. But it has been replaced with something perhaps more insidious – the algorithm. Like in so many areas of our lives, algorithms direct us to the things that we know we already like. When it comes to our media consumption, algorithms direct us to more things that we are projected to like – in some cases to the exclusion of other things that we might like. As Nir Eisikovits argues in “AI is an existential threat – just not the way you think”, the algorithms that ‘help’ us to make choices are “already undermining people’s capacity to make judgments, enjoy serendipitous encounters and hone critical thinking” (1).
If you watch programming through Hulu, for example, it will show you programs that you might also like based on what you’ve watched (or what you watch a lot). [1] Once you have watched a show, it will show you other things you might like. Only Murders in the Building will get you The Bear, The Great (about Catherine the Great), Live & Beth, Nine Perfect Strangers… and while it will give you Abbott Elementary, Not Dead Yet, and Reservation Dogs, these are at the very end of the recommended list.
On the other hand, if you watch an episode of Atlanta, your options are quite different. Abbott Elementary, Godfather of Harlem, Reservation Dogs, Woke, Key and Peele, and the Black reboot of The Wonder Years are high on the list of things you might also like.
[Oliver Upton, Cast of Atlanta (including LaKeith Stanfield, Brian Tyree Henry, Donald Glover, and Zazie Beetz), 2022]
While it is true that number of viewing options between multiple streaming services and the remaining programming on network and cable channels is large, black programming can still be found. The point, however, is that with the function of algorithms, we lose the serendipity of stumbling on a program that doesn’t fit neatly among the things we have already watched. Even with narrowcasting, we might still happen to see a show that we didn’t intend to watch; as an example, I began actively watching Not Dead Yet (a sitcom with Gina Rodriguez) because it was on after Abbott Elementary, and it peaked my interest.
It is also true that the industry largely believes that programs that are about and feature people of color are not attractive to white audiences. This myth continues, driving the purchase and broadcast decisions about what we see and how they market it to us – and even whether they choose to purchase a program, or how long said program runs, or how long they continue to stream older programming. The exception to this might be when the network is black-owned: Queen Sugar, an Ava DuVernay produced program, ran for seven seasons on OWN, where Oprah Winfrey, as CEO, maintains some control over programming.
[Family dinner from Queen Sugar, 2016-2022]
In contrast, while working on the aforementioned chapter of Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape, Netflix removed A Different World from their offerings. Netflix, in fact, will periodically remove titles from its catalog if its licensing ends. Titles can return if there is sufficient popularity, or if it is licensed with other programming. Fortunately, I had advanced warning, so I focused on watching the episodes I needed to watch – but I fear that it might be lost to future audiences. It is available on Amazon Prime, at least for now, and hopefully it will remain there, but much depends on algorithms.
Algorithms, then, are the new narrowcasting. They can lead you back to the same things you always watch, instead of showing you something different you might like. They are a mirror of the echo chambers that dominate our politics. But algorithms can also lead you to things you might otherwise have missed. Unexpected popularity of a program may lead to its showing up on more top lists (such as “popular on Netflix”), which may be just enough for you to check it out – and maybe keep watching.
We can be grateful for the fact that we can watch shows – and movies – that would not have been made back in 1992, by artists who are interested in showing an expansive view of black life in all its great variety and in multiple genres. However, we will also have to work to manipulate the algorithms that would keep us away from some really excellent programs.
Notes
[1] Hulu uses a combination of human actors and AI in order to create its recommendations. Netflix uses probably the most complex algorithms. For a quick primer on algorithm use in streaming platforms, see Devyn Hinkle. “What is an Algorithm?” Arts Management & Technology Laboratory. August 18, 2021.
References
Anderson, Lisa M. Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape. New York: Bloomsbury, 2023.
Eisikovits, Nir. “‘AI is an existential threat – just not the way you think.” The Conversation. July 5, 2023.
Cover Photo Credit: Kerry James Marshall, “Untitled (Studio)” (2014).
Dr. Lisa M. Anderson is a Professor of Women and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the implications of media representation of black people, especially black women and queer folx. In addition to her recently published Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape (Bloomsbury 2023), she is at work on co-authoring Black Queer and Trans Creolizations with Jacqueline M. Martinez.