On At Least One Network, Females Are Same
Percentage of Characters as Population

In the 2004-2005 season, the percentage of female characters on UPN achieved numerical parity with the percentage of girls and women in the U. S. population, according to San Diego State University communication professor Martha Lauzen’s annual census of women on-screen and behind the screen.

This is the first time since Lauzen began studying women’s roles on and off screen during the 1997-98 season that this has occurred.

Lauzen examined 2,198 characters appearing on one randomly selected episode of every drama, situation comedy, and unscripted program airing on the six broadcast networks during the 2004-2005 prime-time season. (Unscripted programs were added for the first time with this study.) Among her findings:

• Females accounted for 39% and males 61% of all characters. (Last season: 41% and 59%, respectively.)

• Viewers were much more likely to see female characters on programs airing on the newer networks such as UPN (52%) and WB (50%) than on FOX (39%), ABC (39%), NBC (39%), and CBS (37%).

• Overall, female characters were younger than males. Women 40 and older comprised 12% of all characters. In contrast, men 40 and older accounted for 27% of all characters.

• Females in prime-time are overwhelmingly white (77%). Fourteen percent are African American, 4% are Latina and 3% are Asian.

Anti-Stereotyping Toolkit for Covering
Politics To Be Available in Spring 2006

Politics is a man's world. At least that's the impression we get from television. The media give less airtime to women than to men in politics, and there are differences in the kinds of coverage women and men receive.

The video toolkit “Portraying Politics” analyzes production patterns and professional routines that result in these gender-based differences. It challenges journalists and program-makers to reflect on the way they currently do things, and to think creatively about new possibilities. The toolkit will be available, in English and German beginning in April 2006.

“Portraying Politics” is a European Union-funded project. A leaflet with more information about the toolkit, and details of how to order a copy, is available. Contact pamela.moriniere@ifj.org

Report Links Consolidation of Broadcast Ownership
To Rise in Indecency Complaints

A report released in September 2005 by the Center for Creative Voices in Media and Fordham University's Donald McGannon Communication Research Center offers compelling evidence of a link between media consolidation and broadcast indecency.

The report — "Ownership Concentration and Indecency in Broadcasting: Is There a Link?" — is a preliminary investigation into the connection between ownership concentration and indecency, focusing on radio broadcasting from 2000 to 2003. Among its findings:

• Ninety-six percent of the FCC indecency fines from 2000 to 2003 were levied against four of the nation's largest radio station ownership groups: Clear Channel, Viacom, Entercom and Emmis.

• The percentage of overall indecency fines incurred by these four companies was nearly double their 48.6 percent share of the national audience.

• In contrast, the 11,750 other U.S. radio stations not owned by these companies —88 percent of the country's stations — received just four FCC indecency violations.

• Eighty-two percent of the radio programs that generated FCC indecency fines were owned by large, vertically integrated radio station ownership groups. To read the full report, visit www.freepress.net.

New Niche Magazine Targets Wives
Of Professional Athletes

Launched in September, the Professional Sports Wives magazine says it will offer “a real look at the lives of wives of active and retired professional athletes, coaches, sports executives, and team owners.”

According to founder Gena James Pitts, Professional Sports Wives “reveals the realities of life for wives of those with careers in professional sports, offers human-interest articles for the media at large, and self-empowering articles and useful information for sports wives to be better helpmates in order to support their husband’s career.”

Pitts describes the magazine as “a cross between a sports wives’ version of Sports Illustrated, People, and Oprah.”

Professional Sports Wives will be published quarterly. For more information, visit www.prosportswives.com.

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Research in Depth -- The “Masculine” Content of a Female-Managed Newspaper

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