GLAAD Reports That If You Want Your Gays, You'll Have To Pay

Each year, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), releases a report about what we at AfterElton cover every day – LGBT representation on television. But where we tend to try and take a qualitative look at what’s beaming into our living rooms every day, GLAAD’s annual report takes more of a quantitative approach.

Looking at TV numerically makes sense for an annual report – you can’t possibly deal with the nuances of each episode or the development of a character like we do when we start typing each day. But it also reminds me of what my college statistics professor said on the first day: Numbers can lie.

GLAAD separates cable and broadcast networks into different categories for their report, and that’s fairly significant. The report only looks at original programming for primetime hours, and excludes any syndicated programming. This means that while ABC is graded on producing 1,146.5 hours of television, the Top 10 cable networks combined produced only 1,212.5 hours of original programming. Therefore, one character on one show can really bump a cable network into double digit acceptability.

Broadcast Networks

It will come as no surprise to anyone here that ABC leads the pack of the five broadcast networks. The Alphabet Network airs AfterElton.com favorites such as Brothers & Sisters and Ugly Betty. Overall, 24% of the primetime programming on ABC features GLBT characters. Beyond our beloved Kevin & Scotty and Marc, GLAAD calls out Dr. Torres of Grey’s Anatomy, Andrew, Bob and Lee on Desperate Housewives, and Carmelita on the canceled Dirty Sexy Money.

CW comes in second at 20%, largely based on two cycles of America’s Next Top Model which features J. and Jay as judges, and broke ground last cycle with a transgender contestant. ANTM also gave CW top rankings on racial diversity. On scripted programming, they earned points for the gay demons on the canceled Reaper, as well as the barely-there characters on Gossip Girl and Privileged.

The Old Fogey Network, CBS, holds the dubious distinction of having zero GLBT characters on scripted programming for the entire year. If it weren’t for reality hits Survivor and The Amazing Race, Bill O’Reilly would find it perfect.

Which is ironic, since Fox managed to almost triple their LGBT impressions, from 4% last year to 11% this year. They largely managed that by putting the straight guy’s fantasy, the hot bisexual woman, on their top shows House and Bones.

They saved all talk of gays with penises for shows that GLAAD calls “bad” impressions, like Sit Down, Shut Up, Family Guy, and So You Think You Can Dance. Representation is evidently a double edged sword.

It should be noted that GLAAD gave Fox zero points for American Idol, because Adam Lambert didn’t “officially” come out until after the show.

NBC managed to bump their performance to 8%, from a failing grade of 6% the previous year. Bright spots cited were John Cooper on Southland and Prince Jack on the canceled Kings.

Sadly, this is unlikely to improve their standing since they lost other inclusive shows like ER and My Name Is Earl. We can hope new head of programming Jeff Gaspin, who is credited with launching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Project Runway during his time at Bravo, will do better for diversity.

Cable

When looking at the rankings of the cable networks, it’s important to state upfront that GLAAD only looks at the Top 10 rated networks – so channels such as the gay inclusive Bravo aren’t listed. And quality of representation will vary wildly.

One thing about cable, if you want good representation, it’s going to cost you. HBO and Showtime top GLAAD’s list, at 42% and 26% respectively. Otherwise you’re going to get stuck with the 1% that you get from TBS and A&E.

HBO gives us True Blood, Entourage, and The #1 Ladies Detective Agency – in fact, of the fourteen original series that HBO produces, eleven featured GLBT representation. When you narrow it to scripted shows, only the canceled Flight of the Conchords failed to have GLBT representation.

HBO also stands as somewhat unique in another way – GLAAD’s only complaint is that the network is too gay – as in too gay male. At the moment, they have no real lesbian, bisexual or transgendered representation.

Showtime dropped 8% from the previous year, and its most inclusive (by definition) program was The L Word, which isn’t returning next year. Still, it offered fresh representation on Weeds and The United States of Tara. While the excellent Nurse Jackie fell outside the time frame of the study, it will help fill the void with Thor and MoMo.

Most of the other top cable networks fall in the 8%-19% range, but this is where the numbers are a bit deceiving. TNT made the biggest jump of 18%, from last year’s 1%, largely on the addition of law clerk Charlie on Raising the Bar – and we know Charlie often has no greater role in the show than the weekly juror #9.

SciFi (as they were known for this study) got to their 8% inclusivity rating by getting credit for Gaeta on Battlestar Galactica and for Vincent in Eureka. The report does note that you wouldn’t know Gaeta was gay without the webisodes, but still oddly chose to give the network credit.

Which begs the question – if a gay character gets airlocked and nobody knows he likes boys, is he still gay?

Hopefully hiding their heads in shame are the folks at TBS, who managed a gay character set up on a date – with a woman no less – on a single episode of My Boys. A&E, who gave us a gay reality OCD sufferer on Obsessed, and a minor character on an episode of The Cleaner, should join them.

What’s it mean?

The general feeling from the report is we’ve hit a plateau on representation, with not much changing year-to-year. Individual networks move up and down their rankings, largely when one show gets canceled or tried out.

There also seems to be a pattern for a network that may transcend who’s in charge on whether or not there’s GLBT representation. Networks tend to have development deals with a few production houses, and those production firms will have a couple creative people who are comfortable writing a type of character or show – which is how we get three CSIs, four Law & Order and so forth. Proven talent gets first chance to pitch a show, so we get more of the same.

It’s when you get some cross-pollination that the interesting happens: Ryan Murphy, who kept FX gay for years with Nip/Tuck, gets the chance to create Glee for Fox, both of which are owned by News Corp.

ABC Family has a great track record for inclusiveness with Greek and Secret Life of the American Teenager, following its broadcast parent’s example. CBS, separated from its former corporate cousins at Viacom (parent of AfterElton.com), fails to get much cross pollination from the inclusiveness exhibited by MTV, The N, and yes, Logo.

Each network is largely like the Galapagos Islands, evolving in an isolated and unique way, and despite society as a whole changing rapidly in inclusiveness over the last three years, each network group largely evolves within its own bubble – for better or worse.

You can read the full GLAAD report here.