Viewing Race in the Comfort Zone

Carter suggests the concept of a “comfort zone” to explain theinability of dramatic African American programs to be successful on television. Heargues that a workable formula has been developed for successful African Americanseries, “portray black people in a way that would be acceptable to the millions ofpotential purchasers (whites) of advertised products. That is, non-threatening andwilling to ‘stay in their place.’”. Using a data set constructed from television ratingsand shares, this study examines “black-centeredness” within the context of programsuccess and failure. The comfort zone concept argues Black-centered television seriesare only successful in a comedic genre because White audiences, who have the majority ofthe ratings power, will only watch Black-centered series with which they arecomfortable. The findings suggest that, in general, race, that is Black-centeredness,did not negatively influence program ratings or shares