Stories

The COVID-19 crisis, with its quarantines, lockdowns, and sheltering in place, has led to a dramatic redefinition of the word “home.” For many of us, what was once a sacred base to relax from work, study, and travel has become, thanks to the pandemic, a full-time living, office, and leisure center rolled into one. The revisioning of our living space prompted by the pandemic has dovetailed with a series of internet-powered innovations that, together, create what is known as the smart home.

Every year, television networks and broadband providers converge in New York’s Times Square to celebrate and discuss diversity in their programming and within their companies. A week of conferences and educational sessions focused on a mission of sustaining diversity, equity, and inclusion across the internet, and media industries. Recently, an oft-overlooked area of diversity is gaining more attention in the industry: people with disabilities. 

Representation matters, and the need to increase diversity in programming is a vital priority for television studios. This emphasis has borne fruit in recent years, with top-rated shows such as Insecure, Lovecraft Country, Vida, and Ugly Betty charting an innovative path across genres and networks.  But while these and other advances are welcome, more attention needs to be placed on programming for the most impressionable demographic: children. This is where an industry leader – Disney Junior and Disney Television Animation – is making diversity a daily reality, both on-screen and off.

Fall is synonymous with the start of school, the return of football, and most importantly, the release of the fall TV schedule. The pandemic has made television production difficult, but as they say in Hollywood, the show must go on! Television studios have been working overtime to ensure you have plenty of great content this autumn, with both premieres and new seasons of the tried-and-trues competing for our attention. Here’s what we’re keeping our eye on this fall.

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools across America last year, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston kept their doors open so that young people could have safe places to continue their classroom learning online while their parents worked. But the clubs faced a big challenge. Not all their spaces were equipped with internet connectivity aside from their technology labs. With social distancing measures and safety protocols being paramount, the clubs needed to utilize every room possible to keep kids in pods and to give every child the ability to connect to their classrooms virtually. This is where the clubs’ long-time relationship with Comcast in the area helped to not only overcome this obstacle, but to set up kids for virtual learning for the long haul. 

Difficult as it may be to believe, this year marks the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The events of September 11th, 2001 altered our history forever, bringing a nation together out of the pain of tragedy while shining a light on the heroism of the first responders who risked their lives to save others.

Labor Day is fast approaching: a time to reflect on the contributions made by generations of workers throughout our nation’s history. This year, we want to shine a light on the employees who kept the nation’s broadband infrastructure up and running throughout the COVID crisis. 

Over the past decade, television has made important strides in terms of diversity, featuring onscreen talent from a widening range of ethnicities, cultures, genders, and sexual identities. While this work is to be applauded, however, it needs to go even deeper. For true diversity is not just about the actors in front of the camera: it’s about who gets to tell the story, and what that story is. Let’s explore the personal story of how Paula Madison, the principle owner founder of The Africa Channel, found a way to research and tell her own story—on TV.