Neda Ulaby reports on Wednesday's Morning Edition that there's a surprising channel where you can see Latino, Asian, or African-American people, as well as gays and lesbians, in significantly larger numbers than in much of the rest of broadcast and cable television.
That channel is HGTV — from Home And Garden Television — which features people of color as hosts and homeowners, as well as designers and retailers. Neda considers an episode of House Hunters, for instance, that featured a black couple where one was a tech consultant and one was a government nuclear inspector. The president of HGTV makes clear that the diversity of participants — not only the homeowners, but the design professionals and other consultants — is entirely intentional, and has resulted in an overall increase in its audience and an even bigger increase in its minority audiences.
It's easy to write off inexpensive basic-cable shows as largely time-swallowing placeholders, but according to some of the folks quoted in Neda's story, there can be big payoffs from remembering to make them a little bit more inclusive.
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