TV Shows From The 90's?

What is the reason why the number of all-black TV shows outside of black networks (i.e. BET, TV One) has decreased since the 90s and early 2000s?

• If you look at the 90s, there were so many shows about black people that weren't specifically aimed at black people, like Fresh Prince, The Cosby Show, Family Matters, Living Single, etc. What happened in the 90s and early 2000s to end this trend? Is it due to societal change? Some sort of insider business thing?

• Answer:

  2 reasons, co-related: 1. The further TV history has gotten from the 1984-92 run of "The Cosby Show", the ratings of all-black shows on the major broadcast networks have dropped. Whether this is due to the quality of the programs, or (more likely) the erosion of TV audiences to specialized cable networks, when the broadcast networks began to double down on what they expected to be big hits, those big hits tended to follow the formulas that were successful in the mid to late 90s ("Friends", "Seinfeld", one-hour cop dramas, starring mostly if not entirely white casts). The huge explosion of black sitcoms in the early 1990s were the direct result of "Cosby" being #1, not a pure-intentioned attempt by the networks at balance. When those shows stopped grabbing top 20 ratings, the number of them dropped to only a handful (e.g. "My Wife & Kids", which never got a better yearly rating than #41) and then to none. Why weren't people watching them? Most of them simply weren't as good as "Cosby". A lot of them had poor time slots. A lot of them didn't have star power. And a lot of them just weren't that good. Even some of the ones that kept getting renewed (hi, "Family Matters") got pretty bad (in quality first, then in ratings, leading to cancellation) toward the end. All-black shows briefly had shelter at the lower-tier networks (FOX, UPN, WB) before FOX and the merged CW started going after shows that would pull larger ratings (same formulas as the majors, with FOX also doing animation. "The Cleveland Show" in fact was the only "black show" on broadcast TV for some time, and its lead was voiced by a white man). 2. Black sitcoms that would garner ratings of 1 to 3 million per broadcast would not satisfy these broadcast networks, but are considered hits on cable, which is why cable began to invest more in these sorts of programs. Now TBS, TVLand, OWN, and soon Adult Swim all have original black sitcoms currently in production and currently being broadcast, in addition to BET and TVOne. The very concept of cable television allows for specialized marketing and specialized programming. Granted, shows on cable get smaller season orders and less money, but at least they exist.