The holiday season always serves as a special time of the year as it effortlessly spreads a sense of warmth paired with love and selflessness. To make this holiday season a bit more more amazing this year some of cable’s most major networks have developed and produced a multitude of diverse films and specials surrounding black and brown families.
According to the MultiChannel ; networks like OWN, Up Tv, Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel have developed original specials designed specifically surrounding the holiday season featuring lead Black and Brown actors.
“There’s a formula to holiday films: You have a nice-looking couple, they end up falling in love, there’s a happy ending, fa la la la la,” states editor of TV industry website Programming Insider Marc Berman. “What’s always been missing from that formula are people of color — there has been an enormous lack of diverse holiday programming.”
Sources have confirmed that all together these networks are set to release a series of 90 original holiday films; scheduled to debut between the last week of October and through December. The films and television series will consist of diverse storylines and scripts.
The networks motive is to diversify the traditional scope of holiday films, series and storylines; simply because there aren’t that many specials shown from the other side of the color spectrum. Most holiday shows feature white actors and their white families.
“Black audiences are not monolithic and storytelling for this audience should be as diverse as they are, including holiday programming,” states TV One senior vice president of original programming and production Brigitte McCray .