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“Nickelodeon’s Hispanic Outreach”
BACKGROUND
During 1999, many social activist organizations dealing with race began to
step up their campaign for more diversity in media. The NAACP issued a
report card on cable diversity based on 1998 data, and the industry did
poorly. As a response to that report, NAMIC (National Association of
Minorities in Communications) issued a set of proposals the cable industry
should take to “raise it’s diversity grade.” Proposal #8 was:
“Targeted Programming – Produce more quality shows
featuring minorities in lead roles both on-and off-camera.”
Nickelodeon had always been successful at including girls, AfricanAmericans, and Asian-Americans as main characters and positive role models
in its programming, and made it an on-going effort every year to see if it
could do better. As Herb Scannell, the President of Nickelodeon stated, “if
we’re a network for kids, let’s show all kids.”
Our goals were as follows:
 To create new programming with more diversity both on-camera and offcamera to reflect a more realistic world for kids;
 To aggressively promote the fact to the media that the cable industry in
general, and Nickelodeon specifically, were answering the call for more
diversity on television.
PLANNING
 We did extensive unprecedented ethnic research on kids under the age
of 14 to discover their thoughts on race and ethnic differences, and
studied the diversity on the top 20 television shows (cable and
broadcast) that kids watch. We also found out through the National
Hispanic Foundation for the Arts that although 1 of every 12 Americans
is Latino, only 1 of every 100 characters on television were Latino, and
many of them were not positive role models;
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 We took a look at our current programming to see where we could do a
better job of representing a wide diversity of cultures in our shows, both
in our characters and our off-camera staff;
 We made it a development priority to address the shortage of Latino
characters on our network.
IMPLEMENTATION
 The Programming Department developed three new shows with culturally
diverse main characters (all productions include Latino creators and
other off-camera staff as well):

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
Dora the Explorer (a young, bilingual Latina girl)
The Brothers Garcia (a Mexican-American family)
Taina (a Puerto Rican-American high-school girl, launching 1Q 2001)
 Media kits were created to promote the new programming and were sent
to our press list; we also sent kits to the lifestyle press and the Latino
press, with aggressive follow-up efforts. The network increased its
promotion budget and bought extensive media to spread the word.
 We presented our three new shows at the Television Critics Association
(TCA) tour, and held a panel question-and-answer session with Jeff
Valdez (“The Brothers Garcia”) and Maria Perez Brown, (“Taina”). Over
50 of the nation’s television critics participated in the discussion.
 The president of Nickelodeon, Herb Scannell, was interviewed by
numerous publications (including The New York Times and The Los
Angeles Times) on the issue of the state of Hispanics on television, and
cable’s role in leading the way.
 Nickelodeon Productions created and launched a Writing Fellowship
Program to further identify and cultivate new creative talent. The paid,
one-year fellowships provide new writers with live action, animation
television or feature-film experience. The program focuses on
identifying culturally and ethnically diverse talent, and we created a
website so that anyone can get information about the fellowship.
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RESULTS
 Nickelodeon has responded to the call for more diversity on television,
and cable has received tremendous publicity as the leader of diversity
programming on television.
 The National Hispanic Media Coalition honored Nickelodeon with its first
“Diversity Award” at its annual Impact Awards Ceremony for the diverse
programming and casting that we employ on our network.
 The Writing Fellowship Program received over 900 applicants, and four
people have already started their fellowship.
 We are continuing our efforts on diversity in general, and the network
recently added a new show, “Pelswick”, whose main character is a
quadriplegic boy in a wheelchair.
 The network is also continuing its efforts to seek out additional diversity
behind the camera: “Invader Zim” will launch in 2001, a program created
by a Mexican American writer.
For more information, contact:
Jean Margaret Smith
Vice President, Public Affairs & Administration
Nickelodeon
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
(212) 258-4447
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Addendum
Nickelodeon
“Nickelodeon’s Hispanic Outreach”
Media Relations/Print Materials
During 1999, many social activist organizations dealing with race began to
step up their campaign for more diversity in media. The NAACP issued a
report card on cable diversity based on 1998 data, and the industry did
poorly, and NAMIC (National Association of Minorities in Communications)
issued a set of proposals the cable industry should take to “raise it’s
diversity grade.” Nickelodeon had always been successful at including girls,
African-Americans, and Asian-Americans as main characters and positive
role models in its programming, and made it an on-going effort every year to
see if it could do better. It created three new programs featuring Latinos
as main characters, and aggressively successfully promoted the fact that
the cable industry in general, and Nickelodeon specifically, is the leader of
diversity programming on television.