CBS President Responds to Failing Grade in GLAAD Network Responsibility Index
August 3, 2009 by Jonathan Rosales, GLAAD's Entertainment Media Manager
Last week, GLAAD released the Network Responsibility Index (NRI) to coincide with the start of Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour. This morning, CBS was the first broadcast network to present and AfterElton.com brought up the NRI.
CBS President Nina Tassler
About ten minutes into the Q&A, AfterElton editor Michael Jensen asked CBS President Nina Tassler about the network’s Failing grade.
First of all, it is a source of concern for me personally and for the network. We have a fundamental commitment to the philosophy of diversity across the schedule and representation of gays and lesbians on air. The interesting thing is that I do think we have good representation in our non-scripted programming, but we certainly have to include [LGBT characters] in our scripted programming. And what I’m hearing … several of our programs going into development have gay and lesbian characters already pitched into the show’s themselves. Like I said, it’s an area we need to work on, need to focus on and hopefully we’ll do better next year.
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[...] the lives of LBGT people. At the Television Critics Association meeting, CBS President Nina Tassler was reported as saying, “we certainly have to include [LGBT characters] in our scripted [...]